My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie "I've got a splitting headache!" she said, referring to the laceration in the back of her head. "Yeah, I'm not sure ibuprofen will be strong enough for that," muttered her brother as he sat in the chair across from her hospital bed. The nurse had waddled off to confirm a painkiller prescription with the doctor. Of course, there was no hope for the car - it had been dead at the scene. Leave it to Kimmie to get distracted and veer off the road! But Dan had resolved not to freak out until he had reached her room in the hospital, and as it turned out, he didn't have to be anxious after all. Of course, his mom had been hysterical on the phone, even after he had told her the good news. He wondered if news of the totaled car stung worse to his parents than the potential injuries that their daughter could have received. Once the prescription was filled and the request to the pharmacy finished, Dan was allowed to push his sister ou...

"Can you make sense of the transmission?" Alan could not. Hovering over him was his boss, Lucinda, who had pulled off her suit jacket and dropped it onto the adjacent stool, rolling up the sleeves of her conservative satin shirt. On the speakers was nothing but the roiling of static - like swollen waves caught in a radio receiver, warbled and unwelcoming. "I don't know what they're trying to tell us." "If anything at all," interjected Claire from the back.