My Cardboard Balcony

Tonight's Masked Man by Belinda Roddie Tonight's masked man was smoking tangerine cigarettes and eating soup, his face warm and oily from the lamps carrying the aromas of rosemary and garlic. As he lifted a strand of beads dangling from his left brow, he stirred his spoon around the bowl and made green tidal waves in the confines of black porcelain. The waitress could not stop staring at the strange array of yarns and feathers lining his jawbone and golden wasp cloth covering the spots where stuff hotter than grease spat vitriol across his cheeks and nose. He never would remove the cowl. But to the girl, he should.

"Lights, camera..." "Wait, wait!" I rolled my eyes and backed away from my filming position as the star, Samantha Kelliorson, waved her arms frantically for the director to step in. As he did so, I realized how heavy his eyelids appeared to be - gray blinds against his eyes. He needed more coffee, or something, to get through this. "I just don't feel right, Bradley," Samantha was saying. "I'm just not in the moment." "I'll put you in a moment by slamming the camera literally into your face," I muttered.

Caress the Nose by Belinda Roddie The sharpshooter kisses the wet, seeking snout of his rifle barrel - two pecks, one lick, muscle against metal. It's done some marvelous work today, sending bundles of feathers crashing onto the dry grass and instantly molting in premature decay. When he stoops to retrieve the meal, his fingers constantly caress the nose - that slender, flaring nostril rimmed with dark powder, everything there but the red-rimmed eyes. This is the hunter and his lover. They share work together. They share meals together. And most of the time, in the thick of a stifling August heat wave, they share a bed together, one smiling, the other snoring.

"It's a trap!" "Stop saying that." "IT'S A TRAP!" "You are not Admiral Ackbar!" "IT'S A TRAAAAP!" He kept bellowing it over and over as I served everyone a second helping of garlic mashed potatoes. Susan groaned very audibly before spooning large squares of butter into her spuds. "Honey," said her father, "don't you think that's a bit too much fat and carbs?" "IT'S A TRAP!"

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.