My Cardboard Balcony

Dust to Dust by Belinda Roddie My bucket is full of ashes, white as receding snow, the hillsides bare and brown as I trek toward my sarcophagus. It is ornate, amber-hued, like the heavy sun against my eyes. This coffin was meant for me, not you. And yet, it is your laughter I deposit here. Your smile, in crisp, non-human specks. Your promises as thin as paper. The lost words burn without heat, leaving a hole in my pail as large as the chasm in my chest.

"Are you okay?" "Nobody asked you!" I snapped, before I realized who was talking to me. She had apparently just emerged from the bathroom stall, her dark hair tied in a ponytail and her face stoic. "Oh." I exhaled. "I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't know..." "It's okay," she said. "I figured you were stressed out. Anything I can do?" "Rewind the last three months of my life?" She smirked. "Something I can do that works with the laws of physics, Kathryn."