My Cardboard Balcony

The Cold Spoon by Belinda Roddie While eating soup in a greasy spoon, I watched an old man gnaw at a hamburger with nothing but bleeding gums. The taste of tomato in my mouth was far too sweet for my liking, and I drained it from my quivering tonsils with warm milk. The frosty, shivering silhouettes of truck drivers in their blue booths, huddled against their fleece jackets and their ear-flap hats, shook me up a bit as I laid down a very hefty tip from the leather wallet that napped in short bursts on the inside of my tailored black sports coat. I wrote a brief nibblet of encouragement on the receipt, bundled up with a scarf, and nodded goodbye to the men with snow in their eyes.

Joey had dreamed of a bittersweet romance. Not a succulent one. Like eating dark chocolate without a gooey cherry center. Or caramel. Caramel, to her, was the epitome of overindulgent sweetness. Like asking your tongue to wrestle for glory against a swamp of sticky kisses. She sat down at the café with a black coffee and a croissant. All butter. No sugar.

Asiago with Black Coffee by Belinda Roddie The crisp cheddar conversation began with dilated pupils over an IV drip drop drip splashed with artificial sweetener. I drank my coffee like muddy pitch, sticky tar coating the trembling uvula that withheld all the secrets not best told for brunch chit-chat. You thought the stuff in pink packets would be better for you than sugar, but your tongue missed the cane like white splinters between white knuckles in your gums. And while we talked, a man stumbled by asking for change, not for a bus ride to San Francisco or for a small cylinder escape, but instead for a bagel, sesame seed, with cream cheese.

"Start your engines!" the pubescent announcer squeaked on the makeshift intercom as the tiny little automobiles revved up. As Bobby McFinn lowered his helmet, he did not notice his father beaming from the crowd of bystanders waiting for the race to begin. Boys and girls from nine to thirteen years old all prepared for the competition, vehicles splashed with colors and stickers and stars. But Bobby did see Jessica Bonnet at her sleek black racecar, giving him the thumbs up.

Forked Fingers by Belinda Roddie You always had to clarify your true intentions with Cajun sarcasm laced with paprika. "Just kidding!" or "quote-unquote" gestures with knuckles poised in white and red streaks, while you sipped from a styrofoam chalice. I studied microbes under a scrutinizing eye and there you were, sitting in my science lab, cracking jokes about the teacher, and when he saw the arched eyebrow I knew he couldn't get angry at you. But it made it so damn difficult when you said "I miss talking to you" or left me a text message without the pasty emoticon guiding me by the porcelain hand to the real meaning of your stale condiment vocabulary.

A bright blue insect which I could not identify nestled itself in between the wall and my oak desk. Its wings appeared to be like crystal, drops of sun sprinkling across its reflective sheen, bits and pieces of rainbow foundation scattering about my white walls. I wanted to retrieve a book of mine and see what its name was, but instead all I could do was look at it over my stream of notes.

"Please disregard the obnoxious woman in the back," said the bedraggled professor as the thirty-something-year-old student glowered at him behind horn rims. "I'm trying to discuss physics. There is no room for religious argument." "Why did we even get on that topic to begin with?" asked Sam. The professor shrugged. "No one likes to be proven wrong."