My Cardboard Balcony

Grand Theft Internet by Belinda Roddie So that's thirty a month for internet - the general sense, at least. Maybe ten a month for a subscription to some video-hosting site. You might buy a few pixelated points to beat a level in the next diabetes-inducing food game fad, or maybe send imaginary gifts to people on Facebook for the low, low price of five dollars each. If some greedy bastards get their way, though, that'll be another five dollars a month for socializing, ten dollars a month for idle video watching, twenty dollars a month for running your very, very important business, and last but not least, a handful of desperate change for the chance to be able to say, I can still have a free Internet. Only it's not free. And they want it to be less free. And they want to get fat on the food in your larder. And they think it's okay.

There was a dull pain in my knee, and when I rolled up the leg of my jeans, I stared at the spread of blood beneath the denim. It had not seeped through the fabric, but it was staining my skin in a web-like pattern, not seeming to be emerging from any scrape, gut, or gash. As I stared at the tattoo-like carnage on my patella, I began to feel a strange shivering sensation up and down my thigh. Suddenly, I could not walk. Suddenly, I could only kneel.