My Cardboard Balcony

The Mottled Lampshade by Belinda Roddie This living room is like a needy tomb, quite the opposite of living, when the snoring becomes wheezing at the end of a nightly brain hemorrhage. Oh, but those stains on the lamp do pose quite the decor, when the Zinfandel turns purple and then brown with the harsh fade of electricity, as the hearts palpitate for a current or two before the plug is pulled.

Up against the flames surrounding the door, he grazed the inferno with a finger and his upper lip caught ablaze. It swirled into a orange firework mustache - sparking at both ends - the fizzling, twizzling skylight embedded into his newfound whiskers. Try as he might, he could not open the door and step out of the room, and every tongue of fire simply added to his facial structure - the heated sideburns and the Hellish beard.