My Cardboard Balcony

The typhoon had left thousands of people dead and even more homeless and stranded. So when the self-proclaimed humanitarian strode across the ruins and wreckage of past lives, he actually had a very hard time coping with it. "You know," his partner remarked as they tried to make themselves comfortable, "I heard this one tried to donate meth to the typhoon victims. You know...because he thought they'd need to chill out." "I think they're going to need something a little stronger than that," the humanitarian muttered, wondering how much he could really help now.

by Belinda Roddie Billy the Leaf watched his neighbors fall. The Johnson Leaves, one by one, exhaled in crackles as their skin turned to orange, drifting from their branches with a beautiful synchronicity before settling onto the cracked asphalt. The Smith Leaves, sporting a more diverse set of reds, browns, and yellows across their faces, snapped from their holdings separately, as they had always been a dysfunctional family near the top of their tree. And old Gary the Leaf, who Billy could have sworn was wheezing a laugh the whole time, got to ride the autumn breeze a bit before dropping into a roof gutter and waiting for the next rainfall. Billy the Leaf usually did not mind seeing his neighbors depart, only to be replaced by new neighbors the next spring. While it made the winter somewhat lonely, he still had his family to talk to, despite his uncle being somewhat frosty to him and his mother more attentive to his two younger sisters, who clung to the lowest part of their flesh...

"How many trumpets do we have in the pit?" "Three," the conductor replied. "One for each part." "But the script demands a whirlwind of trumpets!" the director cried out, flailing his arms. "How the Hell can we concoct that sort of sound with a mere trio?" "You don't understand," said the conductor, smiling as she adjusted her bowtie. "These three women will give you a sound that not even a dozen horns can replicate, even on their best night."

Welp, Thanksgiving has come and gone. I've eaten my fair share of turkey and pie, drunk too much cider for my own good, helped sell a plethora of books despite some rookie mistakes, and spent lots of quality time with family, friends, and mo chuisle . I have discovered, as an adult, that it is far, far too easy to cling to the negative aspects of life because they are so blatant and intrusive in your day to day routine. For instance, I still need more hours at my current job. My budget is still very small, which means money is tight. I'm not exactly doing much to lose weight and become healthier. I don't have a huge circle of friends. I miss the people I adore in Southern California. I don't know how I'm going to manage getting into a teaching credential program, timewise or moneywise. I'm uninspired in a lot of my writing lately, especially music-wise. And of course, my anxiety does wonders for making me worry about the most insignificant, or most unproductiv...

"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 Two by Belinda Roddie With most of my attempts to get into some sort of anthology, I was advised to add a little blurb about myself, whether in the form of a list or a paragraph with a maximum amount of words, which was in itself rather ironic considering writers were normally not expected to keep things mathematical or their thoughts to a sharp and finite point. Howe...

Across the entire school hallway was a plethora of stencil portraits, and it wasn't until I reached the last dozen or so of them that I stopped and perused them, ignoring the consequences of being late to my very stressful physics class. The last of the drawings, tucked into the tightest bottom corner of the cork board, was hardly a face at all from close up. But if I took a step or two away, the lines and swirls became a smile that I could never compare to anyone else's liveliness.

The Turkey Was Missing by Belinda Roddie The turkey was missing from the oven, and my mother was about to throw a fit looking for it, so I proposed that we round up the usual suspects. Well, surprisingly, my dog's breath did not smell of bird, so that typical ending was scratched off the list. My father was vegan, my aunt not a fan, and my sister too absorbed with her cellphone to snatch a whole turkey from a hot appliance. Not quite successful with catching the culprit, I knocked on the bathroom door to find my drunk cousin gnawing on the half-chewed carcass, gin on his breath. He'd never had much class.