My Cardboard Balcony

The Stoic Are Not Always Robots by Belinda Roddie Sympathy is not in my vocabulary. It is not built into my motherboard, or lighting up my circuits. I am more carbon than silicon, but the cardiovascular rhythm in my chest is not a response to ecstasy, or pity, or love. I wait outside until you stop crying, then return to your room with something strong to drink. This is how I cope with others' feelings. This is how I imbibe emotions: Tiny sip by tiny sip, so I never really taste it, and it's much easier to stomach. When you look up at me through salty glazed eyes, I know you're searching for gray matter beneath my skull instead of chips and gears. The truth is, you and I both run on electrical currents - the burst of nerves and synapses, those fragile wires leading to Tesla's towers so they can erupt with physiological fire. We are chemicals in glands bulging like bags behind our eyes and mouth and forehead, the bile threatening to spill into

I encountered Mister Lackley behind the school office around six in the evening. He was smoking a cigarette, dragging his boot-clad left boot across the same road skid of run over leaves, as if he wanted to rearrange them into a pattern that felt more alive and less like tire residue. I propped my shoulder against the wall beside him and looked at him. "No soccer practice today?" I asked. "Nah," he replied. "Too many kids on the team are sick. No scrimmaging this time."