My Cardboard Balcony

The Peace Chamber by Belinda Roddie You've coughed so much each time you've stepped out of the shower that you're not quite sure why you started doing it in the first place. You used to blame the temperature change, that adrenaline-jolting drop from Hawaiian mist to Bay Area pseudo-tundra. Now there's so much air lodged in your chest that it's like a latex balloon with nowhere to go but out, that seemingly necessary expulsion from the throat, rattling your entire frame until the glassy spots resembling stars start bouncing in the panes of your blurry, waterlogged eyes. You've never had respiratory issues, and the worst you ever got to an asthma attack was after running a mile in high school, resisting the urge to vomit in the bathrooms just nestled beside the dirt track, which had done wonders to the soles of your shoes with its bumps and divots, like pockmarks on old, corrosive skin. You try your best not to cough once you remove yourse...

There she lay by the chamber door, a broom all clattered on the floor. She'd swept and sighed and sighed and swept - for nearly a week, she hadn't slept. After the evening had elapsed, she stood and, all at once, collapsed. We didn't know just what to do, and so we left her, black and blue.