Creative Writing : Unclaimed

Work in progress for a contest where the theme is "Anger and Revenge"

Mary Kay. The very mention of her name reawakens feelings inside of me that shame me to this day. I see her as the seven year old child I once knew with fair white skin and flawless blond hair. She held back her stray bangs with a pink bowed head band that exposed her petite pierced ears. My memory always dresses her in a bright pink tank top with pink jean shorts and white socks hemmed with lace. Her shoes were always a spotless white making me think that she hardly played outside or she had a closet dedicated to those damn shoes. This poster child of perfection is the living image of destruction that jump ropes innocently in my mind.

In late spring, when I was nine years old, I sought a piece of land that I could call my own. The front yard of my home belonged to my mother with her vibrant flower gardens and the back yard housed my father’s vegetable garden. These spaces came with irate shouts of “Don’t step on my lavender, they are older than you are,” and “The tomatoes aren’t ripe yet, stop touching them,” which was usually followed by being sprayed by the hose. There was a small rock wall that separated my parents’ property from miles and miles of unclaimed woodland. Unclaimed, the word fizzled on my tongue and shivered off my cherry Popsicle stained lips.

I set forward in my shredded jean shorts and worn foam flip flops onto the dirt path leading into the woods behind my house. The ground was littered with desiccated leaves, decaying branches, and immortal debris. A tiny vine clung desperately to an old soda can, reaching over its dented sides towards a sliver of sunlight. It was there that I spotted a small area, void of any growth between three large boulders. My mind raced with ideas as my toes snuck off the foam sole of my flip flop and wiggled into the soft dirt.

“Where are you going?” my father asked as I ran down the path with a hammer, a skein of green yarn, and scissors with a sense of purpose.

“Nowhere,” I answered without turning towards him but I felt a light spray of water pass over me.

“Don’t lose that hammer, young lady! It’s new,” he said, attempting to spray me with the hose again.

I built fences made of dead branches, tied together with yarn and propped up against large rocks and fat trees. I scoured the forest floor of all of the dead limbs, but I still needed more wood to complete the fence. I didn’t want to ask my father for help but I was out of options. On the path back home, I spotted a stack of wooden planks behind my neighbor’s house. The planks were ripe, rotted and teemed with nails. White mushrooms sprouted from their cracked skin and tiny bugs scurried through the termite tunnels. They were thrown over the rock wall, forsaken, forgotten. Unclaimed. I shook with excitement and began dragging them back to my space. The splinters bit me and dug deep into my arms but I didn’t care. My mom often swore after the roses’ thorns had pierced her wrists during planting but she still stared at their blossoms with accomplishment.

The next day, I was so absorbed in the last bit a fence that I didn’t notice my younger next door neighbor behind me. Mary Kay. She stepped next to me, blocking the small bit of sunlight that peeked through the trees. When I looked up at her I had to squint because of the brightness haloed around her head. I hated her ever since I saw her amazing dollhouse on display in the window that faced my house. Hers was real, built from wood with authentic carpets and furniture while mine was a bright plastic monstrosity.

“Can I join your fort?” She asked, picking up my sap crusted craft scissors. I grabbed them in one swoop, causing her to gasp.

“Don’t touch anything, you’ll break it,” I shouted as I lifted the last bit of fence between us, blocking her out.

Her eyes quivered and she ran home, her blonde hair swaying with her unsteady hips. I made sure to wear dark clothes the next time so she couldn’t see me outside her window. I hid behind trees as I approached the piece of woods behind her backyard and found another prize, two discarded sawhorses spotted with aged paint drops. I could make a table! I pulled out some of the old nails in the planks and hammered mismatched boards on top of the sawhorses. When the table was done, I put a vase of lavender flowers and a bowl of bright green tomatoes in the center of the table. I spread out stained carpet remnants on the floor which had been destroyed in my basement from water damage. An unsteady plank tied to one of the boulders served as a chair.

The sun was setting so I filled a rusted bucket with my tools and tied the doorway fence behind me. It wasn’t until a reached my backyard that I saw Mary Kate’s mother, arms crossed and her lips twisted in anger. Mary Kay was behind her, the pink bow from her head band peaking around her mother’s tanned arms.

“Did you steal my saw horses?” the mother asked sternly.

I didn’t answer.

She hurried towards me and clenched her hands on my shoulders. She towered over me and yelled louder. She gripped tighter, her manicured claws piercing my naked shoulders. I kept my eyes low to ground, see only Mary Kay’s bright white shoes. Before she could ask again, I ran into my house. My parents tried to console me but all I could say was “I didn’t steal her seahorses” between cries. My father confronted my neighbor, but it was too late. They found out about about the wood, the saw horses.

“I didn’t steal! The wood was just there,” I cried on the kitchen floor.

“It wasn’t yours. You can’t just take things,” my father explained while he emptied my rusted bucket into the trash. The hammer thunked loudly against the plastic bin. He reached down and retrieved the hammer.

“No one wanted it,” I whispered and crawled to my room.

As punishment, I had to return everything I had taken from behind Mary Kay’s house. Through watery eyes I yanked the yarn from the unsuspecting planks and dragged them to her driveway one by one. I tore apart the table, the green tomatoes rolling out of the bowl and then flattening underneath my feet. I stomped savagely upon those unripe tomatoes until their bludgeoned bodies spit out their seeds. The lavender flowers wept over the side of the cheap plastic vase and I slapped them away, scattering the wilting plants on the ground. The vase cracked against the stiff bark of one of the trees before seeking shelter beneath a labyrinth of roots. I lugged out the last piece of wood, not really noticing the deep enraged scars in the dirt from my numerous trips appeared behind me. I thrust that last piece of wood into the pile and went home. I could see Mary Kay and her mother staring out the window.

Later that night while trapping fireflies in an old coffee can, I smelled something burning. The smell made me think of marshmallows. My dad often fired up the grill to make smores but the smell wasn’t coming from my yard. I ran to the old wooden fence that separated my house from the neighbors and peeked through one of the cracks. I breathed in harshly and clenched my teeth so tight that I was sure the pressure would pulverize everyone bone in my body. There in my neighbor’s driveway was my dismantled fort, my small sanctuary, immersed in flames with Mary Kay’s mother standing beside it with a large box of matches in her hand.

My mouth opened wide and I turned my face skyward. If I freed that burning scream, it would have certainly blistered my throat. All that escaped from my shriveled lips was a guttural breath. And there she was in the window, next to her perfect dollhouse. My nails raked down the wooden fence and I pounded my fists against my thighs.

Fifteen years have passed and I found out a few weeks ago that her mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Through rumors, I hear she only has a few months to live and yet Mary Kay is nowhere to be found. I know that my wish for revenge was strong that day and I know that there is no way I could wish cancer upon anyone but a part of me, the nine year old part, is still crying “I didn’t steal.” I can still see Mary Kay’s dollhouse displayed in the window.