My Cardboard Balcony

The Killer Sang A Hymn by Belinda Roddie The killer sang a hymn on his way to the courtroom, wrists shackled in heavy lead, praying, as hypocrites are wont to do when demons act like God inside their heads. The plea had been scrawled out, though festering within the murderer's brain was a swarm of pathogenic malice that could sting a child's heart with no true physical harm. He truly believed that he had carried out the word of the Holy Man himself, the dogma heavy, dank, with horrid reek of anti-sacred passion that could melt like golden ire inside the madman's eyes. His death was martyrdom in hot disguise.

Danny damn near wet himself when he saw his stepfather walking toward his hospital bed. Like a man who had stabbed a victim was walking in to check out his handiwork. He was scraggly and hobo-esque - typical and somewhat cliché, but, there it was, all blatant and out there like a bruise. The trauma seeped over the young boy's face as his mother clung to the ruffian's arm.