My Cardboard Balcony

Callback by Belinda Roddie She reminds me of the 80s: The high ponytail, the pastel explosion across her blouse, the bellbottoms screaming for the Flower Power to come back for a final kiss. She sings to late-stage Genesis on the radio and Rick Astley past his Youtube reputation, and she dances to the last dredges of disco before the bottle runs dry. Me, I pretend I'm a 90s kid, though in truth, I'm a product of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11. I smell fear like hot silicon when I flip open a Razr. The ribbed sweaters and daisy dukes hide the latent homophobia, with three or so states waving rainbow flags before the Pulse stopped ten years later. Some things don't change, but we like to pretend that we're evolving - and we're just enjoying the sips of past generations that have been scanned and proven harmless. After all, the rose tinted glasses fit so well under flower crowns and headbands when you forget the bitter aftertaste ...

by Belinda Roddie I've been doing housework all day - scrubbing, soaking, sweeping every bit of residue that remained of you - when she walks in through the front door without so much as knocking. She has curly brown hair, big eyes belonging more to a doe than to a human, and yet a smile that peaks like a glorious mountain during sunrise. She sits at the dining room table as I work, scouring every plate and bowl and glass we got as our wedding presents, and asks if she'd like me to help. "It's not your mess." She laughs then, then exhales and shakes her head as if warding away the impending mosquitos of summer. Her east coast accent is so much lighter now, yet I'll always recognize its timbre. It's the rhythm of a voice I've been accused of maintaining, despite my Californian roots - all six generations of it. And she stands up and removes the sponge from my grimy hands. "Take a break. You deserve it." She offers me a glass of wine ...

If at first you don't succeed...invest in an aluminum baseball bat and use it to beat the snot and/or tar out of your haters. Then, once they've stopped moving, dump their bodies into the sewer because the water system in your hometown is absolute rubbish, and no one will taste anything different about their water. Then, after a few months, move to a small town to the north of your current residence and become a wheat farmer.

Guys, I'm exhausted, and of course, the night I'm exhausted, I want to be even more introspective than usual. So bear with me if my writing's a bit disjointed or even terser than usual. So today was yearbook distribution day. Not terrible - some hiccups here and there - but boy, did it remind me of so many reasons why I'm glad to leave. From the lack of administrative support to the head of the finance office biting my head, I was so grateful to just get off campus. I even had to restrain myself from crying and reminded myself to just keep pushing forward: You're almost done, Belinda. One more week. And then you're going somewhere else. But that's the tricky part, isn't it? Going somewhere else. Instead of a Panther, I will be a Gaucho. Instead of teaching 10th grade English and Yearbook, I will most likely be teaching two different levels of English. Classes will be by semester, not year. I have gotten into contact with my new principal and depart...

Death Is Only The Beginning by Belinda Roddie "I'm scared." "Why? The warlock's gone." "That's why I'm scared."