The bulldozer was on its last legs. Or should that be on its last tread?
Bad jokes weren’t really her thing, but at times like this that the tension came out in inappropriate ways.
It had all seemed so innocuous last summer when they first went to look at the newly purchased section. The last one in the sub-division. They could see from the homes that had already been built that this would be an interesting neighbourhood. It wasn’t a typical cookie cutter development where every house looked the same, and in the absence of numbers would be very easy to try to enter the wrong house.
They felt that the design they had been living with for so long now, would be possible in this community.
They had felt excited on the day they held their “section warming” party under the tarpaulin they hired specifically for the party.
The first to arrive had been their immediate neighbours to be. If they seemed a little cold, well surely that was just because they didn’t know each other very well just yet.
But the words “not on our lives” that had greeted the unveiling of their dream house plans could not be explained away so easily.
Threats were muttered. Lawyers names invoked. And normally that would be enough. But then came the hemlock in the tea. That had been the step too far.
She hired the biggest bulldozer she could find. And the night after her beloved’s funeral, she ensured it was full of diesel and started the run-up along the street. Along the street – straight into the house of those very neighbours.
Written to a random three word writing prompt (Vengeance (Kindred) – Dying – Bulldozer). Sometimes you just don’t know where that story is going, until you end up there. RIP husband – we barely knew you.
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Ursula Hoult 