My Cardboard Balcony

Scratching by Belinda Roddie scratching at the peeling calluses on my weeping feet, I was drinking a bourbon melting on my lips while watching Saturday Night Live laughing at its own jokes, when knocking on the door was a sobbing brown-haired girl clutching a teddy bear drooping stuffing from its beading eyes. After calming her down by feeding her a cookie, I got to asking her why she was crying. To which she said, "begging your pardon, sir, but being abandoned, I'm lonely and itching all over my arms and legs, and I can't stop scratching."

She wear the gold speckled earring in her left lobe, her right one singed off by a fire at her small cottage in York. She had not bothered to get a new patch of skin attached, and she preferred to wear her wound like it was a war injury. In a way, however, it was - she had not been foolish and caused a cooking accident. She had really been the victim of arson, and a very angry husband.