My Cardboard Balcony

Yochanan's Gift by Belinda Roddie "God is gracious, God is kind. God will give you a pat on the back from time to time." Those were the words that Yochanan gave to me when I was half-drunk in the full strawberry moon - June fever ran rampant, lunacy lived up to. He gave a hand for me to grab and yanked me from the melted tar bubbling under my stolen leather shoes. Yochanan left prints on my hand that glowed gold when I tried to sleep, and never once did the hue fade until I snapped the neck off a bottle and drained its blood into the gutter. That damn little boy was given such a clumsy name, yet there was nothing but grace laced between his eyebrows, drizzling the smile he cast me when he saw me three months later, full harvest, bearing fruit, grinning with silver buttons I bought myself, gold patted on my back.

"Who was the planter?" "Um..." I blinked. "Planter?" "You know what I mean!" Martin roared. "The planter of evidence! Of incorrect evidence, might I add! Throwing off our scent!" "How in Hell would I know who the 'planter' was?" I demanded. "Are you implying something?" Martin's face went from red to magenta. He sputtered. He shook. He marched back to his desk, with the chief staring after him. "Don't worry," he murmured. "He blamed me this morning."

Cobweb Pipe by Belinda Roddie The smoke was dust, and the ash nothing but clumps of crying lint lying languid on the too plush carpet, as Graham emptied pouch upon pouch of the most expensive tobacco, only to have it taste the same every time - like death.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, Roy checkmated Shane. Shane couldn't make sense of it. She had calculated every move perfectly, down to the very last pawn. Every strategy, every technique, boiled and bubbled and brought to one big, frothy formula - worth nothing after Roy's deft stroke of deliverance. Shane looked at the board and clicked her tongue. "You're a little bitch, McTannie," she scowled.

You Drank Coffee by Belinda Roddie There was something extraordinarily green about your eyes, tingling olives suspended in a murky martini wonderland, and you used those pristine fruits to glower at me behind the table of gossip, laced with intoxicating vocabulary, hand-tossed words on Caesar, with the "Et tu?" echoing - and I could not blame you for that. You drank coffee, smoky Joe's café brunch special, but at ten o'clock at night - breathing fumes of fields, the laborers dancing on your tongue. You didn't care about verbal stimuli, the forked back and forth innuendo of debate served greasy on a bed of balsamic vinaigrette, the emulsion of black pepper on rye. You were made uneasy by my smile, and I could not blame you for that. Now, we became two, instead of one - the cellular mitosis of conflicting regimens, the siamese becoming fraternal fast, the nucleus bubbling into red lava lamp floaters in the sinister line of vision held above...

In the small café, they were serving hot chocolates to any homeless person who stumbled in for warmth. The blizzard had not let up for eight days now, and no cars budged from their snowy nests, and no lights emitted ever gave enough heat to thaw out fingers and loosen water from in between lips and in between eyelids. One matted woman in particular asked for espresso in the cocoa, and they gave it. Never before had they seen sparklers in a winter lady's eyes.

"You're going to go for that?" Sam nodded with a peaceful smile as she pulled out what appeared to be a magenta waistcoat from the bargain rack. As she slipped her arms through the sleeves, she transformed from the seventeen-year-old chemistry genius that Arthur knew to a divine, regal looking specimen. She could almost leap onto a white stallion, snatch a beautiful sword, and gallop off to save a princess.