My Cardboard Balcony

Attention Seeker by Belinda Roddie The boy eats all of his grandfather's rainbow medication, to see if he can grow wings of wax, ascend like Icarus, and touch the color spectrum without burning his fingers on the sun. There are no negative side effects to the pill consumption, but his mother insists on taking him to the hospital, and his father has one hand on his hip as he slowly and deliberately undoes his belt buckle so he can leave a pretty welt on the obvious attention seeker's face. His grandfather, out of everyone, minds the least, and he asks to see the boy's tongue - but it's pink, not blue or red or green like the mosaic of tablets swallowed in the fantasy assembly line. And he smiles and says, "This lad will grow wings some day," before taking his cane and using the tip to poke into the father's leg as a warning toward further violence. The boy goes to his room. He sleeps soundly. He dreams rambunctiously. All car...

"Joseph, I know you far too well." "Do you, now?" Jefferson leaned forward in her chair. It creaked slightly, like it was attempting to breathe, its cushion serving as a lung. She smiled at the grungy man, handcuffed to the table. "I know when you willfully commit a crime and when you don't," she mused. "You've had your fair share of whoopsies." "But this time?" "Fraud is the most willful crime of all."