My Cardboard Balcony

Spaghetti Night by Belinda Roddie Bring on the cheese, if you would, pretty please - my pasta is barren and dry. It needs deserts of white with the flavor just right, Parmesan dreams kissing the sky.

I could see the dysfunction of the city stemming from a lot of hate. Racial hate, cultural hate, even abhorrence of one another based on social status. Funny how it all came back down to money. I walked those streets time and time again, collecting pennies and dropping them into the hats of those too poor to sleep. They had to stay awake, in order to speak with enough people willing enough to give them pocket change worth a cheeseburger or a bowl of soup.

The Trail by Belinda Roddie Our house is older than the town, built in a no man's land where winds carry the shrapnel of a cold Western apocalypse to the front step. People used to come to this trading post to rest a bit during their travels. They drank brandy and ate jerky and played mantras on cracked washboards. They told stories to the owners, who sold cans of beans and dried bacon to anyone with the stomach for it. Now we've nailed a sign to the fence outside stating that we appreciate the history, but our lives are not so dusty or rustic. We simply prop our feet up on couches after long shifts at stores and offices, watching the baseball game while the shadows of tumbleweeds imprint the walls like desert vagabonds.

"Just a little farther," Quinoni panted, "and then we can rest." Arvey was grateful for that. They sat together under a large gnarled tree - too proud to be willow, too depressing to be oak or redwood. Quinoni opened up a canteen of something stronger than water, and Arvey drank more of it than she expected. When she passed the flask back, her knuckles brushed against Quinoni's outstretched fingers. It caused a spark somewhere deep in her stomach, something she hadn't felt since Mistress Kor disappeared.

Log Cabin in the North by Belinda Roddie These footsteps outside my door belong to no friends of mine. No loved ones stomp the snow from their boots when the blizzard is shaggy white. I light a candle to see my own shadow fleeing from the window. It wants to see me once in a while, but it's too shy to stay in winter.

Grandmother suffered her third cancer relapse two months, and despite my parents' protests, it was back to chemo. There was one thing you could never say about my gram, and that was the idea that she wasn't a fighter. She was more than a soldier; she was a five star general braving D-Day in World War II. And when I visited her in the hospital, she flashed me a thumbs up and didn't even wince when the nurse stuck the IV needle in. "Gotta get my fluids," she said. "You've been hydrating, too, I hope."

Duck lit the incense, and we breathed in the fumes, sitting in our separate corners, smoking dope from long, crystal pipes that lit up like fireworks at the end, all neon rainbows and shit. Nearby, Ellie was cooking something on the stove. It probably smelled better than it tasted; I could catch hints of cinnamon, some brown sugar here and there, the occasional stab of hot butter as well, before the sizzling stopped and plates were handed out to anyone who could still keep a grip on porcelain.