My Cardboard Balcony

The Rich Man's Delusion by Belinda Roddie My pewter house is melting in the volcanic inferno. I have sacrificed my sons for sanctity. If this is the end, pluck the rings from my swollen thumbs and sell them to the highest bidders. Not because I have any kin to bequeath them to, but because I have a delicate reputation to uphold.

You weren't the slightest apologetic after the fight. You didn't give me ice for my bruises, or take back any of the words you assaulted me with. You acted like you were simply "in a bad mood," like I could easily forgive you for a lapse in judgment. I couldn't. That was why I packed two bags and left you a brief goodbye note on the kitchen table for you to peruse by the time I was a good one hundred miles away. Good thing I wasn't apologetic, either.

He was going to die - of that there was no doubt. The better question was how long he could postpone the inevitable. The first thing he did was leave the knife embedded in his hip. Taking it out would only turn the stream of blood pouring from his side into a menacing river. The second thing he did was crawl, slowly, toward the closest location that glowed with light. There could be shelter, or food, or people, or safety.

by Belinda Roddie Even her smile creaked. Everything about her creaked. It was uncanny because I was certain she wasn't any older than sixty. I would expect women or men in their seventies onward to start getting rusty around their hinges or squeaky in their joints. But she in particular had aged too fast. When she sat down on the couch, everything squealed, like the brakes of a car wearing down very quickly on a bumpy country road. This was my wife's aunt Zoley, the woman we were meant to look after while my inlaws were away on their annual, stuffy vacation to the east coast. Where we were, it hadn't rained adequately in a good seven years. My once everyday routine of taking a five minute shower was now every other day. I substituted cider and whiskey for water a lot. My wife insisted on bringing her aunt fresh avocados, even though they were twice the cost of what they used to be since we had met. We would split the things open and scoop their innards out into bowls...

My hopes had been flattened upon entering the hospital room. Evan, contrary to everyone else's optimism, was getting worse, not better. I swore that the number of tubes surrounding him increased, the hum of the machines keeping him alive becoming more and more unbearable the closer I stepped to him. It was all the more disorienting, therefore, when he smiled at me from beneath his feeding apparatus and flashed me a lazy thumbs up.

GiantsGiantsGIANTSGiantsGiantsgiantsgiantsGiantsgiantsgiantsGiants That is all. Can you tell I'm a big baseball fan? Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone!

Welp, it's happened. I have officially run out of past writings that I can easily get onto my blog. Everything else I have written is either already on MCB, or it's something I would like to publish or present elsewhere in the future. I hope that you, my handful of readers, have enjoyed the journey back in time in terms of my writing. Now, I will have to think of a new Friday segment, and of course, I will be requesting feedback on such wherever and whenever I can. Thank you for your reading. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to ask my fiancée just what the Hell she's planning to do with my hair, which she is, as of now, playing with. ...It's a ponytail. She made a tiny ponytail. I bet it looks totally bizarre. My fiancée, on the other hand, says it makes me look somewhat like Shippo from Inuyasha. I just...I don't even. Until later tonight, friends.