My Cardboard Balcony

Crystal Are we clear? Crystal. Good. Spread out your lungs and feel the tang. Why? Because your heart's a light in a dozen diamonds, and I want to see its walls. Walls? Like mines, gem hives, where jewel insects crawl and give you air to nourish you. Creepy. Maybe. But it's true.

She has crude methods for making crooks talk. Crude as in rough. Crude as in brutal. She chews tobacco and spits it onto the table just right so it splashes and hits the person in the cheek. She unbuttons her police jacket, exposing a white T-shirt underneath with stains. And when a guy doesn't talk in the right tone, she slams his teeth into metal.

Steel Rosenburg by Belinda Roddie A crisp blue mustache, quivering, icy, raw, the hairs of cigar smoke tinging the corners like a seared ham. Pork laden cheeks, sausage lips. Ruddy red meat with aquamarine fur. The cooking of the flesh, but the cooling of age. Swivel chair. Metal music playing on a portable radio. He calls for a board meeting. Snuffs out the Alec Bradley, Steel Rosenberg keeps steel roses in steel vases in his office, where nothing can grow but the girth of his own belly, and dollar bill signs littering gold weights across his chest, pinning him down to the floor.

We have to cut our losses. Handle our back-ups. Dismantle our initiatives. Rethink our strategies. Or any other business, economic, medical, or scientific lingo like that. Point is, we need to do something different, and fast. We have a blueprint on the table. Gears literally shifting beside us and mentally in our heads. We have something phenomenal here. Something truly revolutionary. We will invent the time machine.

“The principal’s back!” Zoey whispered as we saw her limp down the hall. She limped because under her navy blue slacks, there was no actual leg anymore. It was shining steel and plastic material – a prosthesis of the master kind – helping her stride proudly into each classroom to check in. Under her eyes, we could see the literal scars of war – having left her school post as a teacher to join the army.

by Belinda Roddie Bring me my carrot cake! That's right. Bring it to me. Bring it to me on the nicest plate you can find in your house. Make it porcelain. Make it fine china! And include the finest silver fork. Or stainless steel, if that's all you have. But that cake must be brought to me! It is a marvelous cake, that carrot cake. Fresh from the baker's box, cut from a batch of sweet wonders. Who would have thought that vegetables could help make such a sugary delicacy? It's not just for birthdays - it is for all occasions! Every day must be carrot cake day! ...What's the matter? You don't want to bring me carrot cake? You know, I knew someone else who used to bring me carrot cake. She used to bring it by the dozen to my house. She even brought milk to go with it. Sometimes coffee. Sometimes the finest tea. Then she got tired of it. Didn't want to cater to my humble desires any longer. Even when it wasn't much to ask. Where is she now, child? S...

"Go to the cabinet." I did. I found two bottles of brandy, one jug of whiskey, and three tubs of what looked like dried up meds. I wasn't quite sure why they were in tubs. "Bring the blue pills over." I did. He pulled off the lid and pulled out four pills. He downed all of them without water. "Now," he said, "turn away."