My Cardboard Balcony

The book talked about lovers meeting on a "fateful night," but all I could see were endless cliché, paper-thin character development, and a whole lot of sloppy writing. I tossed the sad-looking paperbook onto the growing stack of personally rejected novels and picked up another one. "Oh, this is different," I said to myself, flipping it open. The author's name was bizarre: Baskar Crypt. It sounded like a weird character out of a bad Star Wars fanfiction.

by Belinda Roddie It wasn't my fault. I tell myself that over and over. Half-buried in the bleached sheets, the pillow muffling all sound threatening to rattle my skull, the curtains drawn so tightly across the window that there was no such thing as daylight. Outside, the clatter of the wind against the masts of nearby sailboats sounded too much like dry bones clinking together. I'm all too familiar with the sound. It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault. I know that I had been drinking that night, almost three weeks ago. I remember the way she ripped the car keys away from my hand. I had walked home in the cold, bitter dark, my thin jacket hardly protecting me from the elements. She had told me to do that. She had told me it was the only way I could be safe. There were bubbles on her breath, too. My parents stopped asking me to leave my room about three days ago. They still knock, though. They leave plates of food outside that I hardly ...

Deep in the jungle, the survivors huddle over the wreckage of a plane that once knew how to fly. They cook up animal entrails in a bucket over a primitive, whimpering fire. As they serve the congealed intestines in scoops, they're put off by the smell - an odor that reminds them of something, strangely enough, from their homes. An odor of smoke and charred flesh and what used to be alive now decaying in the spoons that they bring to their mouths.

Nope. Not being introspective tonight. I'm tired. You know what I'm up to. You know how much work has to be done in a very short amount of time. It was a long January. It's going to be a long February, too. Wish me luck with maintaining my sanity. I'm gonna need it. I have so much to doooooooooooooooooooo... Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.

This Just In by Belinda Roddie Breaking news: I don't give one iota of a damn.

Llandorr wore a cloak of ebony, which was only slightly lighter in shade than his own skin. He had no hair on his head, but a majestic goatee crawled its way from his chin, descending in curls and spirals like dark mattress springs. He carried a staff twice his weight, and atop it shone a stone as white as his teeth, catching the glow of the moon on its smooth and pearly face.

I Vomited Rainbows by Belinda Roddie I vomited rainbows and keeled over the railing of the balcony. I fell a couple feet before I hit the snow that had piled up the night before. The smell of something sweet clogged my nostrils as I recovered from my short descent. I thought I saw a unicorn cavorting by with its horn glittering like gold. "It's not real," I told myself. "None of this is real. It's just the pills I took." I slowly stood, only to hear a red car loudly squeal as it pulled alongside me. It was good, because my sister was driving, and she pulled my drugged ass to some sort of safety.