My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie I was taught grammar with a gun to my head. That is why you will never see me make a mistake grammatically. I will not even type in fragments because the green line that emerges in jagged mountains along my text serves as a somber warning. I will never make a mistake. I will never, ever make a mistake. The boss is watching me as I type this. She is very tall and very muscular. She wears a leather jacket. She carries a revolver. It is not an old-fashioned revolver. It is one that will kill me instantly if I lapse once in this exercise. This is not a joke. I am afraid for my own safety. I will not give you my boss's name. She is simply the Boss. One time, when a colleague of mine said, "Anyways," instead of "Anyway," she took him outside and we never saw him again. The only thing that remains from his desk is a lone scarf. I think there is a drop of blood still on it. Another buddy of mine forgot the apostrophe in "it's...

The man selling the iPod to the impatient customer was missing Thanksgiving at his family's house, where the barbecued turkey with served with thick gravy, and his son sang a little tune as a substitute for grace before making a stereotypical volcano out of his mashed potatoes. And the customer who was being sold the iPod was ignoring his wife on Thanksgiving, even after she had made him the stuffing that he loved so much, because he was bored with his current music player and wanted a new one now, right now, right freaking now.

Well, looks like the holiday season is almost here (for me, at least - for retail, it's been here since September). I'm looking forward to seeing family for Thanksgiving, eating a boatload of food, and preparing for the holidays. Due to my huge employee discount at my job, I actually got all of my Christmas shopping done for a lot cheaper than I usually spend. So that's cool. My girlfriend and I will be spending Christmas together, so that'll be lovely. We already have plans to get a tree and decorate the apartment. For now, of course, it's work as usual, helping sell books and then heading books to play music and write. I was thinking about this earlier today, but if I were ever asked if I had one thing I'd like to see produced onstage or onscreen, it would be my recently completed miniseries, "Happy Distribution." While my novels are okay, the miniseries is honestly my most personal. It's a big chunk of doubts, reconciliations, attractions, a...

"Caramel Kisses" is an unfinished novel I began to write back in 2009 and stopped working on in 2010. The two main characters - Adriana Maguire Reynard and Emma Burking - would ultimately be revised for my later completed novella, "The Liffey Is Half-Asleep," in 2011. Several elements of "Liffey" can be found in their original forms in "Caramel Kisses," such as the characters' names, the haiku scene, and Adriana's penchant for writing.  Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing. Caramel Kisses:  Chapter One by Belinda Roddie I was twenty-two years old when I first fell in love. When I was still in college, many a naysayer in my family enjoyed prattling to me that I would never find love at my young age, that love wasn’t kind to those who lacked the maturity or alleged wisdom that the next thirty-year-old or forty-year-old had. Although I was tempted to bring up the...

Chester was the star pupil - the stray constellation caught in the astronomical web of Professor Anderson's eye. When Chester was staring down at lined paper, his wedge of graphite scribbling away at cosmos, Anderson could not help but look at his student as if through a telescope. The weight of a thousand galaxies weighed on the older man's brow, as he stopped occasionally in his lecture to grab his handkerchief and wipe his brow free from space dust while Chester watched every slight twitch of his forearm.

I Baked A Cheesecake by Belinda Roddie I baked a cheesecake for the party, while Joe prepared a monstrous toad in the hole that could feed a family of eight. "I'll eat it all if you don't hide it!" I told him as he pulled it from the oven. We arrived at the party dressed in such grand colors to complement the royal theme. Our friends were all draped in raiment, kings and queens and jesters. "Eat, drink, and be merry!" Bailey cried. We raised goblets and gold spoons and dined heartily (Yes, I was happy to see the cheesecake eaten). Joe said, "Soon, we'll have to dance like in a Shakespeare play. I could do this kind of thing ev'ry day!"

My mother has literally thrown the television set out the window. I have seen it splinter into plastic and glass fragments on the pavement below, very nearly hitting a homeless man as he slunk by with his garbage bag-filled shopping cart, one wheel squeaking harmoniously with the evening traffic. From a distance, I can see the wires of the television, gaping, from its now freshly opened mouth. Reds and blacks and whites, all clustered around flame - bronze flame.