My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie Warm blood dripped from her hands. It felt so right, but his eyes! His cold, accusing eyes! They remained open after she had done the deed - unblinking, unwatering, unyielding in its gaze. He stared right into her! And yet, she had to endure the piercing sensation in her chest, the agony of knowing that he looked at her as she committed the crime - looked at her, glared at her, never crying out despite the frenzied swipes of the blade. She stood over her father's blank-expressioned corpse with the knife still blanketed with red. The color of his eyes - the color! - blue, like an endless ocean. The ocean she feared, after her old man had dunked her headfirst into the foam. The great unknown engulfing her, salt filling her nostrils, her mouth, her eyes, mingling with her own tears. She had never been able to look him in the eye since then. Twenty years later, she had to get rid of them. Once and for all. Call it the sequel, or rip-off, of The Tell-Tale Heart. ...

"Where's Charlie?" "Oh," she said with a sharp exhalation, "You haven't heard? He's gone incognito." "What?" Lara sighed again. "All ninja secret, you know?" she said. "Like, 'I think I'm being stalked by the FBI' secretive. You know, all paranoid about his social reputation and shit."

I realize that this introspection, in particular, is not a very detailed one. Rather, it's simply a lead-up to the introspection next week that will be much more detailed and emotional. Next week and the week after, I will have time off to prep for my wedding, have my wedding, and then go on my honeymoon. The next introspection I write, in fact, will be the night before the big day. I honest to God can't think of anything else to say than that for the time being. There's a lot to think about, a lot to plan, a lot to get anxious about. Yes, I have been obsessively checking weather forecasts, even though they change at least slightly every day I look at the websites. Yes, the minutia of everything is building up in my brain like collected lint and dust. And yes, I am extremely excited to finally be marrying the love of my life after five years of being together - two of those being engaged. But I don't want to spill my guts out now and get all emotional and reflecti...

Bulletproof by Belinda Roddie One shot between the eyes. And she still didn't die.

The city was cold. Very cold. It hadn't been this chilly in twenty years. Geoengineering had been a a mainstream practice for only two of said years. Either they were doing something right, or something very, very wrong. I was startled to see an old man selling coats on the street corner. Not typical light jackets we had these days, when we were lucky to get sixty degree weather; no, he was hocking the heavy ones, the kind I used to wear as a child, braving the wind and snow on my way to school.

I Just Killed A Dude by Belinda Roddie "I just killed a dude," she said. "Stabbed him twice and then a third time just to watch him bleed. You see, he was the opposite of nice, and I followed my 'no jerks allowed' creed." The other people in the cell exchanged wary looks, and some shuffled toward the wall to get themselves within a safer range of the woman, heavy and six feet tall, her eyes blazing with an alarming zeal as she further described her murd'rous act. "He gurgled throughout the entire ordeal," she quipped, "so that's when I forgot all tact and brought out the buzz saw!" And then she laughed, which just made all the prisoners shrink back.

I lost my passport while in Vancouver, so I was stuck at my hotel, waiting to see if it would turn up at some point. All my plans, of course, had to change: I pulled more money from my bank account, called the appropriate embassies, and then contacted my exasperated mother to let her know that no, I would not be home in time for my brother's birthday, and yes, he could live without my presence there.