My Cardboard Balcony

Postman Blues by Belinda Roddie Your cap hangs on a rack in the cramped mini-corridor leading to your living room where your old burlap friend lounges in front of the TV, and the stamps you've collected lie in suspended animation behind glass. You've kept every single last letter from your loved ones, resealed, and wrapped in red ribbon in each designated pile - from mother, father, wife, daughter. But even as you stop to wipe the sweat from a wrinkled face, waiting to let an iron mouth embrace magazine tunnels of tomfoolery, you can't help opening the laptop that your daughter got you for your birthday and check the Christmas e-cards that your brother sent you.

Wendy had gotten all of the decorations up for this year's grandiose Halloween party. They weren't the average orange and black streamers crimping at the edges, with cardboard skeletons folding in on themselves at the touch of the slightest wind. From the tables, the chairs, the fireplace, the TV - even the glasses, forks, and plates - everything was an array of skulls, bones, and shrouded spookiness.