My Cardboard Balcony

Dead Tissue by Belinda Roddie I tattooed the directions back home on my chest, and it bled like crazy. Crossroads became cobwebs, and freeways spiraled into fleshy, scarred oblivion. I found another needle to pinpoint where my house had once been. Before they tore it down, it was painted blue and green, blending with the grass and sky appropriately, staining my feet with natural paint that made my mutilation, scratched out in desperation to retain lost memories, pale into pathetic pink.

The terrain was hot and harsh, and we were running low on water. I stopped on a specific sandy perch and checked the contents of my canteen. Half empty. I passed the flagon to Jeremy, who only let a few drops settle on his tongue before passing it back to me. "I can handle a bit of dehydration," he tried to assure me. "You just concentrate on staying strong." I nodded. Sometimes Jeremy was too altruistic for his own good, and from the looks of his gaunt face, he wasn't just being meager with his water rations these days, either.

Steadfast and stubborn, the Angela III pushed furiously against the storm. Its captain, true to her word, kept her post at the wheel, despite the wave upon wave of overly salted water soaking her through her majestic coat and breeches. To the east was her sister ship, the Annamarie , bobbing up and down in the swarm of water and struggling desperately to remain upright.

by Belinda Roddie She woke up thinking, "I'm still here. I'm still here in this God forsaken cottage, in this God forsaken village, in the middle of God forsaken nowhere. I don't know why I am still alive, or moving forward. I don't know what the point of this entire expedition is anymore." And truth be told, she couldn't blame herself for those thoughts. With Mistress Kor gone and home being farther and farther away, everything the team had accomplished - or more significantly, hadn't accomplished - was becoming more and more vivid. They had avoided nasty confrontations with the Mischiefs, destroyed haphazardly constructed barracks, escaped being eaten by swamp monsters, climbed a mountain that had almost cost Barkelee's life, sailed a ship that had also almost cost Barkelee's life, fought off brutes that had cost Quinoni vision in her left eye, and been declared Chosen Ones by the Creeback people, just before Mistress Kor had been snatc...

It was a cyclical kind of relationship. The kind in which bruises became tattoos, of spider webs specifically, branching out into brand new spindles of aggression and fear. The kind in which the color of the iris was not noted, but the ring of black surrounding it. The kind in which, if enough amber was imbibed, the flurry of fists would become blurred, and if it couldn't be remembered that someone was assaulted, well, did it really happen, then?

...I've got nothing, guys. I'm sorry. Just the same old, same old. But hey, Halloween's coming up, and that's my favorite holiday! So that's cool. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and Thanksgiving, but Halloween's my favorite. PlusIgettobeFlynnRiderthisyeartomyfiancée'sRapunzel I mean, what? Nothing. You'll see. Also, go, Giants. My baseball team's heading to the World Series for the third time in five years. Awesome. Anyway. Have a great night and a great weekend and all that fun stuff, people. Love ya!

Satan's Son Eats His Lunch by Belinda Roddie Damien was getting hungry. Time to devour some more souls.