My Cardboard Balcony

Doing The Dirty Work by Belinda Roddie I couldn't afford a funeral for my jackass of an eighty-year-old father, so I shoplifted a shovel and buried him behind my brother's house. Then I went back to my own yard and used the same shovel to dig as big of a hole as possible to jump down into so I could be away from the weight of the sky for a while. When you came to see me, and you found me curled up at the bottom of a self-made pit, giggling as if I were an impish child gone half-mad, you cried when I had really wanted you to laugh instead. You scrubbed all the dirt off me yourself, kissing me on all the tender spots rubbed raw by both the sponges and your erratic, dancing fingers. At least you didn't leave unwanted tattoos on my skin like sweet Daddy's belt buckle did on weekdays after two glasses of whiskey, neat. We grabbed take-out once I was squeaky clean, and over burgers and onion rings, you asked me how I had managed to walk out of a hard...

It was called the Blue Heart Institute, and its workers all wore black coats. Long black coats. They walked up and down the corridors with blank faces and clipboards, muttering to one another in a language that was not meant to be understood by anyone but them. We found the name "Blue Heart" to be fascinating, as if the whole organization were lacking oxygen, struggling to breathe and flourish in a cold, hollow space.