My Cardboard Balcony

Whisper When It's Midnight by Belinda Roddie The trumpet loses focus in the blare of lights louder than the note of its horn. Brass burns brightly in neon, and glasses remain icy warm in a confetti-streaked hand. Whisper to me as the clock screams, because the hands don't strike - they flail. They gesture toward the emergency exits, when it's too late for the ignorant to notice and too early for the drunken to care.

I held the elevator door for the man who ultimately would murder my supervisor with a hidden revolver, then sprint toward my cubicle, lobbing stray shots as a warning to get me to duck down. I would watch, as I dropped to my knees, the assailant trip over his own feet, smash into the large window behind us, and plummet screaming down twenty stories into the nearest street curb.