My Cardboard Balcony

It's been a much better week. Mostly because my cousin, who I hadn't seen in seven years, is here to visit. We've done a lot of cool stuff together, and it's been refreshing to be with family and relations. I'm taking everything in stride, though planning out my future does get to me a lot. My apathy/depression/whatever you want to call it has subsided a bit, though I am remaining vigilant. It's just nice to feel passionate about stuff again. It feels great. And yes, I have written a wee bit for my new novel, so it will happen. Just once I'm no longer entertaining relatives (which I enjoy doing, by the way), I'll have more time to really concentrate on getting this done. I'm looking forward to writing this. I'm looking forward to a lot of things coming up in my life. Writer's Quotation of the Night: Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death. - Edna Ferber H...

Eight Ball by Belinda Roddie He plays pool in a crowded billiard room. There are cobwebs in his hair. There is dust dancing on his lips. The sign outside the building reads “Condemned.” It is surrounded by barbed wire and steel fences. One sneering watcher offers him a cigarette. He lights it and aims for the corner pocket. The eight ball bounces. It always bounces back to him. Those who watch laugh and bear their teeth. They do not see that he is grinning too. They do not hear the crack of his pool cue against the felt that’s faded from green to gray. They do not smell the smoke from his cigarette. They do not taste the dust in the stifling air. They feel nothing. All they do is laugh. The broken noose still hangs limply around his neck. He cannot remove it. He aims for the corner pocket. The eight ball bounces. It will always bounce back to him. The game will never end. Some day in this eternity, he will learn not to care. The work you see here was written in the fall of 2009. I...

"I was only trying to be polite!" Carlos couldn't understand why his father kept shaking his head. In the corner, Veronica was still wiping her hand across her eyes, and from a distance, they still appeared to be puffy and red. The disoriented boy sat down at the table and picked up his cerveza. "Sometimes," his father rumbled from above his head, "it's not about thinking you're being courteous. It's about giving a poor chica some peace and quiet."