My Cardboard Balcony

Something Extraordinary by Belinda Roddie Many times, observers reflect on the effects of gravity on a quarter high-life society - where a sliver of humanity injects champagne by the flute, and a greasy chunk of the stranded survives off the very measly products that the sliver of humanity creates in the back room. The soup can extravagances of lower class existence echoes a French revolutionary sentiment, when "Let them eat cake" was derived from the word brioche, which was really a sweet, buttery bread that only the bourgeois socialities had the chance to eat. Now you see why Marie Antoinette said it - out of ignorance. Thinking that the very slovenly peasants who shook their sewage-slimy fists at her could munch on the basic formalities of her own example of ecstasy. And in truth, the guillotine didn't serve as a revelation or epiphany to her, or her husband, or any others pinned down by their own weight to the floor, fed sweets by ten servants,...

The claw was buried deep - very deep - into my shoulder, edging toward my clavicle. There was no finger attached to it. No implication of a talon. A paw. A mutant hand capable of boasting scales or fur. And of course, it hurt very much. I took considerable time removing the claw, and when it had finally let go out of my flesh, it made a soggy noise and slumped in my palm. I examined the clotted object and wondered who, or what, had wanted to kill me in the first place.