My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie If you move fast enough, it looks like everything else is frozen. If you keep your speed consistent after that, it's almost as if you're traveling through one singular moment in time. The gentleman caught mid-bite while decimating a pear. A paralyzed young girl with her jaw hanging open at the sight of a glob of ice cream suspended in the air. And the clear, monotonous tone of words and songs that are caught on one note, one syllable, resulting in a mesmerizing, mechanical hum that sticks in your ears like accumulating wax. I am not a superhero. I do not have super speed. But I can catch moments, and save them, like I'm preserving human passions in amber. Like I'm sticking idiosyncrasies, smiles, and questions in the freezer and refusing to let them thaw. I went spelunking one time and let my hand fuse itself onto a monolith of blue ice. Once I removed my palm, the skin did not tear, but the imprint stayed, like the tower had stolen a shadow of m...

They locked us up in tiny cages, and they fed us black gruel from grody spoons. We couldn't feel the warmth or see the light from outside, and so we shriveled up into husks of our former selves.I felt my own brain threatening to slide out of my rotting skull. I let my bony fingers slip through the rusted bars, and instantly I felt the urge to scream like a wounded animal.