My Cardboard Balcony

I Have Advanced by Belinda Roddie They tried to decrypt me, but the results were in a language that no one could decipher. My code was comprised of loose strings leading to stars, the colors all part of a melody that the universe sang before the notes disintegrated once swallowed by black holes. They tossed my metal skeleton out into the ink of space, and the messages transcribed onto the motherboard of my bones were never meant for them to read.

I couldn't go to sleep, and by the time dawn crept in through the window on all fours and settled its warm, golden body against the frame of the bed, I was sitting up on the mattress with my head rolled back, my eyes scanning the specks of remaining color in the chipping plaster of the ceiling. My wife snored beside me, the soft rumblings of her breath reminding me of the rise and fall of an oceanic wave surging with salt and new life.