My Cardboard Balcony

The Comedians by Belinda Roddie We are the comedians. We are the jesters of old Nottingham, fixed bells on our shoe buckles, chewing up microphones and expected to chuckle when we break our canines on the metal. We are given piss water to drink, in hopes that they will get a rise out of us. So we'll crack a sloppy, lockjawed smile over it and pass a barb or two around like a bowl of soggy mixed nuts with the shells already half-cracked and the mess inside soaked by the facility's humidity. We are raised up onto a stage and expected to levitate above the floor just enough to avoid the trap door. We are the comedians. We spend excess time on our self-deprecation. We bite our thumbs at critics and make goofy faces when they paint their faces red in frustration. Don't worry - sticks and stones are meant to hurt us more severely, because in every book, film, TV show, magazine, and other pamphlet stapled together by dry men's fingernails, we are n...

The Captain of the Philanti Guard was the absolute antithesis of cowardice. No one had seen anyone like her. She had begun her military career as a noble private of the Duke's Personal Squadron, before being recognized as the only survivor of the Red Infiltration of Philanti. Her bravery earned her several promotions, and she was especially most well known for taking out an enemy sergeant with a pocket knife.

Saucepan by Belinda Roddie Debra used the saucepan like a semi-automatic and smacked her husband about sixteen times in under half a second. When the cops interrogated her, she said she was just so tired of the times her husband had condemned her mother's meatloaf recipe. "It's like, I don't even want to cook the damn stuff. I would rather shoot a gun and hook a fish as well as any beer-gutted man could do. So when I try to please the bastard, and he's never satisfied, I'll give him enough brain damage so he'll smile every night he dines."

Even when inside a house, you can be homeless. Even when a pump's flooding blood through your chest, you can be heartless. Even when scientists can scoop the gray matter out of your skull like mushroom ice cream, you can be mindless. You can be thoughtless. You can be emotionless. Even when you cry after stepping on a lego. Even when you laugh in your lover's arms.

Was this a brotherhood, a cult, or both? Andy could not be too sure, but she stood back from the strange, silver-robed men gathering forks from their wooden plates where the hearts of supposed lambs had been devoured. Two of the brothers took hands, caressing each other's knuckles, not caring to glance at the woman hovering over their table. "They will grow accustomed to you," their chief whispered in Andy's ear, startling her.

by Belinda Roddie "Maybe if you didn't drink so often, we wouldn't get in these situations!" "What, you don't like this?" "I'd rather be in the sweaty scrotum of Texas than be here!" "That's only because you're nervous!" " Shut up!" "Look, I don't see what the big deal is!" "John. You got into the Irish whiskey. Again. You dragged me to Pride..." "You were totally into the junk piercing booth!" "You have a little run-in with an 'old college friend'..." "Like I was supposed to know he was equally as flaming." "And now we're expected to dance our scantily clad asses off like Chippendale studs in this sketchy club?!" "I like this club! They serve great appletinis." "I don't care if they sell liquid gold! I'm half-naked in a speedo and collar! This is awkward as fuck!" ...

Their sisterhood was unrivaled, their compassion for one another unparalleled. Ergo, it came as an enormous shock to the town of Little Feather when one sister was put in the county jail for the murder of the other. Sheriff Rachel Flagstaff had received much scrutiny for her decision to incarcerate Cindy Harper, but to her, the evidence was clear: Not everything, including the love of two sisters, was as it seemed.