My Cardboard Balcony

Verbal Miscellany & Oral Oddities by Belinda Roddie The soul of wit is kept in a jar; brevity has nothing to do with it. Maintain its glow, and the fireflies have competition. Your riddles are mine to collect in rows. Take a look at your blackened, greasy fingers. Your words take a sticky form when they slosh against your lips. Little imps lick away at your skin so they can taste a sample of your random intellect. If you unscrew the lid, the language is gone. It dissipates like fog being burned by the sun. Don't be tempted to release newborn ideas before they can walk. A baby bird deserves a nest before its eyes are wide enough to witness stars.

By the time the Council had finished speaking, Arvey could feel the bristling hairs on her neck begin to relax, settling back down against her sweat-moistened nape. Beside her, Barkelee squeezed her hand. Behind her, she could feel Quinoni's fingers massaging her shoulders. It was true that Mistress Kor, wherever she was now, would be held accountable for whatever heinous acts she committed; at least, however, the three of them had been declared innocent.

Let The Paramour Wear Gold by Belinda Roddie Love took the shape of a snake in the bathtub, scaring the color out of an old lady's face. It curled in cursive on a post-it note stuck to a textbook belonging to the college professor. When it got too cold, it wound itself around someone's throat, trying to be a scarf but instead tightening like a noose. And you were there, and you saw how it struggled to take a form that was gentle and elegant and charming and refined, all in the same hour, at the same damn time.

Joshua's teachers were quick to assume that he was "on the spectrum," but the fact of the matter was that he was just very introverted and terrified of public speaking. He much preferred to sit at his desk or in the library, reading a new book that his father had bought him from the bookstore, or finishing his homework and scratching away at his dittos whistling to himself. The second fact that he was transgender did not help matters, and he would rather stay quiet so as not to expose his identity in any way at his new school.

The teacher marched up to my desk with a speed akin to that of a horse having just been stung by a hornet, slapping a sheet of paper down like Zeus casting down a lightning bolt. "You think you're pretty clever, huh?" she barked. I stared at her. "I don't know what you mean." She jabbed a fat finger at what I now recognized to be my math test. "I don't tolerate cheating! There's no way you got all the answers correct!" "But isn't that kind of the entire point?" I asked. "To get all the answers right on a test?"

by Belinda Roddie Not even the professor could tell where the smell was coming from. Still, the miasma was thick in the room - a complex odor of sweat and cheese and smoke and just the slightest hint of weed. Not good weed, either. My friend Ariana described the cheap stuff as "skunk weed." Either way, it was nauseating. "Dude, it smells like someone's dorm room in here," one of the students quipped, as Professor Turnbull tried futilely once again to seek out the source of the fumes. " Your dorm room," his pal beside him added, snorting as he leaned forward in his chair. "Maybe you're the one stinking up the space." "Take a good sniff of my shirt and say that to me again." "No way, dude. I'm not gay." I was beginning to become dizzy from the smell, which did not make good friends with the sweltering heat of the classroom, considering that the air conditioner was busted. I quietly excused myself and ...

I followed Eli out of the gymnasium and found him crying against the fence that separated the parking lot from the school. At first, all I could do was listen to him, his sobbing only loud enough for me to hear once I got closer, each wheeze and hiccup like he was emitting another ounce of pain from his body. By the time I sat down next to him, he had quieted somewhat, wiping his eyes with the corner of his jacket.