My Cardboard Balcony

I Made Rings by Belinda Roddie I made rings out of tiny forks, the kind you'd use for appetizers, like olives, at dinner parties. I would slowly wind and bend them 'round thumbs and fingers. Cursive I'd etch into the metal, and I'd hot glue beads and cheap gemstones to add a flare to the stainless steel. At first, no one bought the things I peddled at the Old Town Square, but one day, a young girl came up to me and asked to try on one utensil ring, and as I coiled it against her skin, she lit up and paid double for the darn thing. Who knows if she'll start the trend one fall day - I'm bending forks forever, anyway.

"Stencils again?" whined Carlos. "When can we do something different in art class for a change?" "When Mister Reinhart gets his head out of his butt and buys some paintbrushes and stuff, I guess," his friend Lisa replied as she grabbed an Elvis portrait-shaped stencil from the box. From the teacher's desk, they could hear a harsh, judgmental snort. "Think he heard you?" Lisa shrugged. "He can hear. He just doesn't listen."

Shoes for the Panhandler by Belinda Roddie Cutting the price tag off a brand new pair of loafers recently bought at the nearest department store, I left the box beside a panhandler with greasy brown hair and fingerless gloves, her purpling toes protruding one by one from aging sneakers with tongues that couldn't taste anymore and heels that had given out sooner than the soles. "I need food and money," she moaned to me, shaking a chipped coffee mug of loose, meager change. But as I walked away, I caught her stripping away her old, terminally ill shoes and sidling her blistered feet into my freshly purchased gifts, sturdy leather enveloping her flesh like a mother's hug, holding the last scraps of her humanity in place.

The natives hadn't taken too kindly to the professor's words, so he stayed in his room for most of the day and didn't say anything unless it was a request for cookies or tea. I, on the other hand, sat down with a good gaggle of the town's residents, laughing as one of the children poked at my metal knee. "What happened to your real knee?" she asked, and I smiled. "Let's just say I sacrificed it for a friend," I replied.

My Bottle by Belinda Roddie They refilled cup after cup from the keg, while I, my ankles soaked in brine and my hair tingling from the salty wind kissing the shore, stuck with a bottle of ginger ale and propped my knee against a rock that was as purple as amethyst when passing cars' headlights grazed it just right. My friend of ten years hiked to my perch, the sand spinning in mini tornadoes against his shorts, and offered me a red plastic chalice of chilled inspiration, but I declined. So he sat down on the stone beside me and drank from both cups. "Some day," he said, "we'll either be too old for this shit, or we'll get caught keeping it up. My money, obviously, is on the latter." Yet for each Saturday of three booze-laden bro years, not a single red or blue glow had been cast upon the beach. "By the way," he added, "sorry about Teresa. I'd say, 'You deserve better,' but I don't think you'd belie...

"Disco? You still listen to disco music?" "Hey, no judgment," growled Hank. "You know how I am about frivolous judgment." Sally waved off the comments like brushing away aggressive houseflies. "I'm just saying, it ain't the nineteen seventies anymore. C'mon." "Are you serious?" Hannah jumped in. "This straight from the mouth of the Pink Floyd fan?" " Dark Side of the Moon is the greatest album of all time. You cannot compare that to freaking disco!"

I Lost Everything by Belinda Roddie The house, the car, even the cat. She took it all, and she dragged the kids, bawling with reddened eyes, out to the curb where our idling auto awaited. Five minutes to say goodbye to me before it was all over. I stood paralyzed in the doorway of my new ramshackle apartment, unable to speak, clusters of soup cans locked against my armpits because I had been preparing dinner. They had called me everything in the book while I was on the stand: A drunk, an abuser, a good-for-nothing negligent low-life. To any audience, I was not willing to tell the truth. I was only focused on the depleting temperatures outside, and the frost kicking me in the chin before I closed the door, and the sane, stable beeping of my phone as a text from my friend asked, "Want me to get a six-pack at the store?"