My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie Make it about puppies. Make it about kittens. Make it about bunnies and hamsters and ponies and baby deer. Make it about something fluffy and cuddly and cute and capable of nuzzling all the anxiety out of you. Wet noses and twitching whiskers and bouncy shenanigans you can capture on video so you can make it go viral. Make someone coo at their screen. Make them claw at their keyboard, filling up comment sections with emojis and likes. Make it about flowers. Make it about pretty things that are fragile and tremble in the breeze. Make it about plants and trees that could wilt or topple at any moment. The impermanence of beauty frozen on a smartphone. Filtered and uploaded with a catchy slogan about living in the moment. That easily snapped, framed moment. Wrapped up in plastic or dipped in amber. Amber's pretty, too. Take a picture of a dragonfly stuck in it and share it with your friends. Make it about the ocean. Emphasize the sand between your toes and the s

"Honey." His voice was syrupy like the very thing he was calling her. Honey. Golden and warm, dripping. "Do you know where you are?" "No." Her vision was fuzzy, like flecks of hairs suspended in front of her. The voice continued to ooze toward her. "Where are your parents?" "What parents?" Mother. Father. Did it even really matter anymore?