My Cardboard Balcony

Maroon by Belinda Roddie Maroon: The color of her necktie, the lipstick on her mouth. The clip holding her overgrown bangs against her golden scalp. A napkin draped across an abundant lap. A curtain over a frosted window to her left. She raises her glass to happiness and love, and her Cabernet matches the tablecloth, the laces on her shoes, the buttons on her gray blazer's sleeves. Then, when she stands up, the glint of blue catches her eye, as one of the more esteemed guests approaches her side of the table with a smile glowing above the collar of her flowing, periwinkle gown.

"So what happened?" inquired Edna. "Old Howie go off on the barkeep in a drunken rage again?" Howie was fast asleep on the couch, with Ursula nursing a cut on his jaw with a pack of frozen peas. I just sat back and exhaled, cracking open a can of cheap beer. "Not the barkeep, no," I replied. "Some neighbor from his childhood, Owen or something? He showed up, and all Hell broke loose. Guess they had some sort of past rivalry or grudge or whatever."

I was ready to roast marshmallows and make myself some s'mores that night, and as I went to the kitchen to fetch the supplies, I caught Marcus sitting at the dining room table, taking a large bite out of a chocolate bar. One look at the wrappers scattered in front of him, and my jaw dropped. "Um, Marcus," I whispered, "those were for us. Y'know, the ones camping out tonight." "Oh." Marcus burped. "Don't worry. I didn't eat all of 'em."

by Belinda Roddie She giggled maniacally, thrilled that her plan worked. In about seven minutes, Connor would be heading to the locker room, thinking he would be inviting her crush to the Valentine's Day dance. Instead, he'd be met with a gaggle of her friends with silly spray and whipped cream to douse him with. Nothing tasted sweeter than the flavor of inflicted humiliation. Reaching into her backpack, Nikki proceeded to pull out her phone and text a brief numeric code to her bestie Chelsea, who was the ringleader of the gang and its enforcement of the master plan. In the meantime, she had a pretty dame to woo. She practically skipped to the soccer field to watch the beautiful Amanda, all grass stains and ponytail and cleats, play some scrimmage before the junior varsity team's big game. Amanda was nearly six feet tall, brown-skinned, sharp-browed, and very, very attractive. She towered over the rest of her team as she played, her capacity as fullback in full fo...

She wanted an espresso and a scone, and once she got what she wanted, she sauntered over to the corner table and immersed herself in a book. Almost instantly, a young gentleman was hovering over her chair, trying to make small talk. The scene was enough to make me want to crush a paper cup in my fist and then hurl the angry wad at the guy's head, but if I were this frustrated, I could only imagine how much irritation the woman was feeling.

Two days ago, I finished my second mini-series, "Full of Grace." This means I now have a completed seventeen-episode series ("Happy Distribution") and a seven-episode series, both reflecting on a certain part of my life and my mentality. Again, I have always had a penchant for writing "what if" scenarios, which, in my opinion, make up most of the scope of fiction's purpose. This leaves me with a slightly cleaner slate. I say only slightly because I have several unfinished projects that I'm not sure I'll get back to any time soon. The Authoritarian Auction remains unfinished, as do my sci-fi fiction and my NaNoWriMo submission. One novel I tried to write, called Home Is That Way, was dead in the water before I even finished the second chapter. That's par for the course, I'm sure, but for now, with one major project finished, my mind is elsewhere. Mainly, I'm thinking about production aspects. It's obvious that I don't jus...

But We Do Have Free Wi-Fi by Belinda Roddie "Where I come from," I said, "we don't have souls."