My Cardboard Balcony

The Teacher Left by Belinda Roddie The teacher left the students by themselves, and of course, all of them just went berserk, flipping tables and turning over shelves of books. They put the younger kids to work turning on the computers so they could play online games and blast loud music. One student went outside and jumped on the hood of the principal's car. She had begun an all-out riot at the school. Students poured out of their classrooms and pulled alarms, tearing up papers and sending parents and mentors alike into madness. Charms would not calm the kids, nor would sweets or tears. This day would be remembered through the years.

The projector wasn't working, so the class couldn't see the film, and they were less than thrilled. Still, the substitute, Mister Hervsheim, did his best to entertain the class. He even offered to a read a book aloud to them, but considering that he was dealing with restless and rambunctious eleven-year-olds who only wanted to stare at a screen for the whole class, the suggestion wasn't exactly received in a positive way.

This Week Won't Die by Belinda Roddie Wednesday's when I get the blues and stitch up my sighs in a burlap sack. I grab something sweet to eat, head to the abandoned railroad tracks, and dip my toes into rain puddles after stripping off my war veteran shoes. Thursday's not much better, so Wednesday will do. I'll savor the flavor of a meager morning, then survive the afternoon after some breathing exercises. After sorrow, it's the panic I have to deal with, blow by blow, attack by attack, and it's always so fucking sharp. I haul my ass back home when the evening's too old. When it's young, I draw circles in my head, like a halo to make me holy for once in my life, for once in my life, for once in my goddamn life.

There was no real scientific evidence to support any of the doctor's claims. Still, he prattled on and on about his conspiracy theories and confusing mathematical prophecies "revelations," all while both he and his guests drank glass after glass of red wine. As the copious amount of booze continually flowered from new bottle after new bottle, the volume of the doctor's voice grew louder, and his balance was increasingly becoming unsteady. Still, somehow, the words came out of his mouth without a single slue, and the nonsense, albeit at a slower pace, continued practically unabated.

Just Gray by Belinda Roddie She doesn't take kindly to shadows crawling on all fours across her canvas. Nor does she prefer the light to grace the oils she lets drip across the white. The absolutes she detests in art - no high moral ground, no golden pedestal to perch an easel on (or even a silver one, for that matter). Her once vanilla smock is drizzled with impromptu designs that lead to nothing and mean nothing. For all her attempts to be in the middle - for all of her valiant efforts to expose things for their detail and complexity - the gradient she has stained across the cloth is too dull to catch the sun, too plain to impress the moon. She has perfected the gray area in that she has scribbled out the substance, bleached the sentiments, left nothing but odor-less smoke behind.

I taught my very first creative writing workshop in the basement of a small and nondescript pottery store, which closed around 5 PM and had an owner who was more than happy to let me use his space provided that he got twenty dollars out of it. The handful of students who had agreed to tis arrangement would file into the basement one by one, sitting on the motley array of cushions and old wooden chairs that squeaked so loudly that it almost sounded like we were strangling cats every time we shifted our weight.

The Stoic Are Not Always Robots by Belinda Roddie Sympathy is not in my vocabulary. It is not built into my motherboard, or lighting up my circuits. I am more carbon than silicon, but the cardiovascular rhythm in my chest is not a response to ecstasy, or pity, or love. I wait outside until you stop crying, then return to your room with something strong to drink. This is how I cope with others' feelings. This is how I imbibe emotions: Tiny sip by tiny sip, so I never really taste it, and it's much easier to stomach. When you look up at me through salty glazed eyes, I know you're searching for gray matter beneath my skull instead of chips and gears. The truth is, you and I both run on electrical currents - the burst of nerves and synapses, those fragile wires leading to Tesla's towers so they can erupt with physiological fire. We are chemicals in glands bulging like bags behind our eyes and mouth and forehead, the bile threatening to spill into ...