My Cardboard Balcony

My Shirt by Belinda Roddie Once upon a time, I was a hypochondriac; it's worth noting that I still am, technically, a hypochondriac, because as experts like to tell us, once a crazy person, always a crazy person. But for the sake of conventional storytelling, let's stick with the liberating past tense: was.  From 2011 to 2012, I was obsessed with sickness. It began with a tick bite that wouldn't go away, and even though my immune system was like a steel factory, melting away mischief with T-cell cogs and teeth, I went to the doctor to get useless antibiotics. That was when, coincidentally, the headaches started. I was prescribed way too strong a nasal spray. Then I couldn't sleep. And from there on out, anything that proved remotely precarious to my health and happiness was always on my mind. I could get a bruise on my leg from a simple slip and fall on the asphalt right outside the interfaith building where I attended noon Catholic mass, and ...

A friend liked to claim that he was all about chivalry - even after he had gotten seven drinks poured down his shirt, nine slaps in the face, and at least two jabs to the nutsack over one week alone. It was hard to remind him that being chivalrous and being overtly forward were two entirely different things, because he wouldn't budge on what he believed was the true path of romance. Last time I checked, someone hit him in the head with a baseball bat.

The Hound's Pail by Belinda Roddie I was in the kitchen when I heard the coonhounds bay, and when I checked outside, I saw the puppies drinking straight from the tin bucket dangling from a string, and I knew it was Garth's moonshine, transferred from the leaden barrel, and the dogs got dizzy afterward, howling in circles, tongues licking the stars.

Scott was beckoning toward me, holding a bottle of warm champagne in his other hand. I knew it was warm because it was already open and half-empty, and the sun slipped across our shoulders like grease and left us stained with ultra-violet rays and perspiration. I walked toward his car and awkwardly opened the door to the passenger's side. "You been drinking, dude?" He hiccuped and laughed. "Why, you a cop? Gonna cuff me?" "Maybe."

"We have a customer in distress on Aisle Three." "Aisle Three. Of course. That's the candy aisle." The manager sighed and put down the cucumbers he was checking on and proceeded to march through the store, following the distinct sound of wailing and whining. I decided to follow him, just in case they needed someone who could "understand." The woman was kneeling on the floor, several chocolate bars strewn beside her.

by Belinda Roddie Waffle House used to be Jeremiah's favorite restaurant, until Sheila had to burn it down in 1987. By then, it wasn't serving waffles - at least, not the waffles that one would douse in boysenberry syrup and top with butter squeezed out of a tube. In the small town of Knovacoke, Waffle House became rather notorious for its characters. Namely, behind the dilapidated kitchens and seating booths with puncture holes in the shiny green cushions, there was a teeming cesspool of dirtier activity. Everyone and his grandmother knew that the place secretly became a giant brothel in 1984, even Jeremiah, who was sixteen and had grown out of his love for the Belgian dough delight and gotten into underage drinking, smoking, and motorcycle riding. Still, the restaurant held a sense of nostalgia for him as he ripped by, his heavy bike practically making ripples in the asphalt as he cast a glance at the neon "Waf-le Ho s" sign and the whitened windows. It was a ...

Not providing one iota of justification for it, I managed to incinerate the entire year's worth of files with some gasoline and a single, floppy match from a set I had swiped from the Moonshine Motel back in my hometown. They were unable to discover that I was the culprit until two months later, when I had safely stowed myself and some minimal belongings in a one-story house in the California mountains. I did not expect the phone call. "Hello?" "We know you burned everything," came the raspy voice of my former boss. "Why?" I snickered. "Because I don't think you deserve any more money."