I Don’t Like to Bury My Hatchets, I Like to Throw Them on the Ground and Hope They Catch on a Toe

*Prompt: Clear Character Voice*

This is what the neighbors saw; a pale white body in pieces and a fifteen year old girl standing over it holding a hatchet. There’s definitely going to be a complaint about this.

I don’t know why we had to move into a stupid HOA home anyway. Everything has to be perfect, pristine, with flowers neatly aligned in their beds. The neighbor across the street is particularly insistent on this. Good old Gladys scrutinizes our lawn with her child-sized binoculars every Thursday to make sure we put our garbage cans away on time. She’s already made six complaints in our first two months here.

She watches now, eyes wide, mouth politely covering her horror-stricken face. The veins in her forehead bulge against her boomer wrinkles as her finger trembles at me. I can almost hear her voice quaver from behind the window, “Rob! Rob, you have to come see this! Look at what that horrid child is doing now! Rob!”

I smile smugly and wave my fingers tauntingly before swinging the ax over my shoulder. I continue hacking as pieces of leg flake the grass.

It doesn’t take long for me to hear her raspy voice call after me, “Oh my good Lord what in heaven’s name are you doing?” Slippers flapping, robe clutched tightly to her breast, she awkwardly shuffles across the road.

“You’d best clean this mess up or I’ll be having a word with your mother, young lady!”

I throw the ax down, “Go ahead, my mom doesn’t give a shit.”

Her gasp clings to rancid disgust, “mind your language!”

“Mind your own business,” I spit.

She huffs and I roll my eyes in response, kicking the disheveled head aside and stomp into the house. Her scolding voice follow me in, muttering something about “teenagers these days”.

Mom gives me a lecture on destroying one of her fashion mannequins when she gets home. She isn’t surprised, but still takes my phone out of principle.

But I don’t miss her smile when she turns away. She’s proud of me. That makes it all worth it- that and the flustered look on the old, crabby woman’s face.

.

– Bree

This is like the first fiction piece I’ve not been disgusted with in a while so I thought I would post it