My Cardboard Balcony

The Creativity of Childhood by Belinda Roddie We built our own mini-Stonehenge in our eucalyptus-littered backyard, each stone a mark of mystery that only we knew the solution to. We ate roast beef sandwiches with peanut butter, making bets as to who would retch first, or who would beat the other to the sink to spit out a gooey mouthful. If we could both finish, we treated ourselves to the ice cream bars that my father thought he was good at hiding from us. And when it got close to bedtime, we told each other stories in order to stay awake for as long as possible, so we could make as many wishes as we could think of on the rare shooting stars that left cosmic paint on the canvas of the endless sky. Above our heads were the mysteries that we only dreamed of knowing the solutions to. We wanted to be druids, chefs, and astronauts. Building, creating, and exploring all at once, the terrain sculpted from our own idiosyncrasies, a smudge of each of us remaining

The ship was sinking, but I still stood by the bow, the wheel warm against my hands. My first mate screamed out to me, waving her arms frantically - I could see her from the edge of my peripheral vision. But the longboats were filled to the brim, and there was no room for me to board without casting others of my crew aside. I was not changing my mind. I was going down with my lady. "That a girl," I whispered. "Let's explore the deepest level of the sea together."