My Cardboard Balcony

Series by Belinda Roddie Noun (Pl.): An inconsequential string of non-sequiturs leading to the ill-conceived conclusion that everything you say amounts to a significant effect on a bucket of cold water, where the ripples die down before the moon is half-risen and the current only sucks at the shore hard enough to erode the earth, but not pull the tectonic plate where the village sits west to a brand new, wild horizon.

I had fought with my brother many times, and yet I didn't want to lift a finger against him now. Not while he was in the hospital bed, white sheets and all, everything pearly and sterile and way too bright for my liking. The tubes, snaking together in large, unfriendly coils, did not help the mood either, and I set the flowers down carefully as if worried I'd break something in the room. "My least favorite plants," my brother grunted. "You're an asshole." I smiled, eyes watering - because of the flowers, I told myself. "I know."