My Cardboard Balcony

Why can’t there be an undo button for a day ill-spent? Perhaps a week or a month or a year? I wouldn’t want an undo for life because then I could lose all the good things I had salvaged from the wreckage. If it were all a Word document, a glaring white screen of text that I could edit and add to and omit details, that would be ideal. Just a little ctrl-Z command in case I need to avert a storm on the horizon.

by Belinda Roddie COFFEE IS FOR MEN. TEA IS FOR KINGS. That's what the sign outside the tea shop read as I across the street from it, reading a newspaper from two days ago. Inside were a few stragglers, most of them fairly and admittedly weighed down by boxes and bags and kettles. One customer seemed to be quarreling with who must have been the store manager, most likely over the price of a porcelain cup. I didn't pay much attention. I only drank hot chocolate, anyway. I was sitting away from the tea shop and directly in front of Flannery's Pub because I was expecting to meet a friend in about nine minutes. Most people would have said ten minutes, but my digital watch liked to scream specifics at me, which made me wish I had an analog watch instead, one even without notches in between the five minute slots. Nearby, a bus was idling near the clock tower, waiting for an old man to shuffle up the stairs into a seat. He was fumbling with something in his coat, mumbling as h...

The whole damn thing felt scripted. You had to make dialogue like this up. Yet, there it was, in the flesh, raw and improvised and meant to be viewed as completely natural. The boy was angry, shaking his fists and grunting. The girl, as if performing a perfect stage direction, threw her glass of wine in his face. The next act was almost too much, as the boy howled, jumped up, and almost bounced up and down with fury. I half-expected the restaurant patrons to stand up and clap.

I have been very busy lately. Busy to the point of having no days off. Busy to the point in which I have to turn down hours from one job in order to get to assigned hours for another. Busy to the point in which I am not reading and reviewing as much, or writing as much. Busy to the point of confusion, yet oddly enough, also to the point of a bizarre satisfaction, a strange enjoyment of the fact that my schedule, for the first time in a while, is almost packed. And keep in mind, this is before my teaching credential program has even restarted. I bought a planner recently because for the first time, I was messing up my schedule. I was missing appointments, forgetting about favors I was going to do for family, and mucking up meeting times. Pretty soon, I might even use my smartphone to keep track of my calendar. Despite the fact that my teaching job is supposed to be somewhat calming down in order to prepare for the fall semester and for my teaching credential, in the last two weeks, ...

Your Final Warning by Belinda Roddie This council meeting will last seventeen hours. Don't fall asleep.

Something inside Teresa's head must have finally snapped, because before any of us could even take a breath, much less blink, Fred was on the floor with a bloody nose, and Oliver was howling in the corner, holding his arm. Just a second before, they had been chuckling, wiping their beer-frothing mouths with the corners of their beer-stained T-shirts, thinking such a woman of small stature could never stand up to their bullying. But they were wrong. Oh, how they were wrong.

The Girl In A Suit by Belinda Roddie The girl in a suit and a salmon pink shirt told me, "I'll kiss you for a quarter, twice for another. Fire your stupid shrink and ride with me to Havana's border on a boat, with a cocktail in your fist. We'll hide out in a broken down café and never tell anyone that we kissed, and lovely ladies will serve us lattes laced with a minty liquor that's so sweet, you think it's from a distant memory, and you'll feel lighter with each new heartbeat as I take you to bed at half past three. We'll go where the gods always gladly went, and all I need for that is fifty cents."