My Cardboard Balcony

Monday In The North Bay by Belinda Roddie I remember the days when the world wasn't literally on fire, and the grass rose in hairy tufts without fear of angry embers settling their twisted, aching bodies into the creases of the earth's dry skin. There was plenty of rain to soak up Mother's palate, and if you were lucky, you got to drink the bay breeze without ribbons of ash getting caught in your mouth - a most unwelcome garnish atop the natural cocktail you were served. I thought about all the things I would throw into my car if given the time, if given the moment, just in case the embers decided to greet me at my front door. Photos in frames and albums, a cloudy chest filled with sentimental values and past dreams. The books would stay. Most of the clothes would, too. Elsewhere, further north and west, the stranded didn't have time to think about their options. All while the vineyards and stores and houses burned down and left people with nothi

I was the writer, the editor, and the publisher in this world. I ran the companies and the distributors and all of the bookstores. I used every single pseudonym I could think of to cram the shelves with tomes all of my own. And no one reading them - no devourer of words, no so-called scholar or pendant of literature - would be able to tell the difference. They said that books were a lost art. I had revived them. And now I brought every existing page to life.