My Cardboard Balcony

The Reluctant Soldier by Belinda Roddie I am behind the barbed wire with a hand grenade locked in my fist, and I am waiting for the revolutionaries on this side to decimate the revolutionaries on the other side. The screaming is intense. The crying is worse. The bile rises in my throat, and I dream of being anywhere else but this contemporary war zone. The barbed wire is in truth a computer screen, the hand grenade a wedding ring. Cruelty oozes in black text from every comment page and social media outlet, but I will not detonate. I will still kiss my wife before we go to sleep. I will still use the pen that is mightier than the sword. I will break through the barbed wire, the battle cry ripping from my lungs, and make a better world out of no man's land.

I stared at the video playing on my computer screen and swore that I felt a headache coming on. Nazi salutes in 2016. Lukewarm to tepid to nonexistent responses from those in power. White supremacy, racism, sexism, homophobia, all oozing out like pus kept beneath the skin for too long. Was I a lunatic? Had I finally gone completely mad?