My Cardboard Balcony

Turrets by Belinda Roddie Baron Jeremiah's fortress was foreclosed and repossessed after he filed bankruptcy with the Royal Council, which had just approved the new recreational swimming pool for the populace in the village, all the while affording court entertainment where jesters made comparisons to greens and reds pouring down in matching rivulets to fill the wells for the townsfolk to drink.

"I'll make this brief - " "That's what you said last time." "Well, yes, but..." "And you took thirty minutes speaking last time." "I understand, but..." "All about Gustav Holst." There was a giggle resounding throughout the classroom. A rickety racket of tittering. The teacher was not amused. But the students certainly were. Very much so. By non-briefness.

I Ate A Tree by Belinda Roddie I ate a tree. I literally ate a tree. I stripped the bark off its body with my sharpened teeth, and I chewed at it like it was gristle. I tried a cluster of bay leaves as a side dish, but it made me crave for pasta with marinara. If I looked hard enough, I could spot tender sprigs of sap crawling from the raw flesh of the trunks where I satisfied my hunger. I sucked away at the sweet knotholes, thinking of maple syrup and shortstacks, glistening with kitchen dreams. The berries scattered in hateful hordes were not edible in the least, instead dangling like forbidden jewels to take from the trove. And before I slept, the crisp cool rain made a puddle in the mud, where I lapped up the earth until it grew molten, and bubbled, and erupted, and the landscape became lava rock and I was left with pangs.

Jack was switching from a large white pill to a tiny orange pill. He had been told that his current medication wouldn't be too kind to his kidneys, and frankly, he preferred potential mood swings to the inability to create normal bodily functions. He sat down for a lunch of cheese and crackers and popped the little tablet into his mouth, washing it down with his can of coke. He could almost feel it fizzing into dust in his stomach.

“What,” roared my father, “is the meaning of all this racket?” He was heaving and wheezing in the doorway, his ample frame squished against the frame, as my sister and I sheepishly looked up from where we kneeled on the floor. I still firmly gripped the baseball bat, while my sister wielded the plastic sword and dagger that our mother had bought for her from the costume store. “The monster came back,” I tried to explain. “What monster?” barked my father. “The big green one.”

by Belinda Roddie ‎I never realized how ashamed I might be to admit my favorite color until I found myself in a room full of stiff suits and pressed collars. It was all too stifling, as stifling as the starch must have been against their throats, their briefcases all lined up in a pitiful row alongside their matching swivel chairs. They had called me in for one reason: Property. The credit card processing company had planned to expand their venue across the landscape nestled beside the 580 freeway, past their asphalt parking lots and down the street that grew ever close to the large depot stores and gas stations. Only one problem: My little publishing house took up the adjacent corner, close to the spot where they wished to establish their new warehouse extension. It was a modest little place, with seven employees at a time. I was responsible for the publication of various nonfictional and biographical pieces, many revolving around the film industry and behind-the-scenes looks ...

In the little steel nest lay three small boys, the barbed wire around them threatening to scrape against their exposed toes. They were all blond, though the heavy mud and brush threatened to tarnish the gold bouncing on their heads as the cold winds blew around the debris. One was clinging to what appeared to be the remains of a stuffed bear. I reached over the wire to touch one boy on the shoulder. He didn't move.