Suburban Decay

Another Spring day awakened, and a small girl sat by the smelly little stream that ran near the playground at the trailer park. The water was murky, gobs of unidentifiable stuff bobbing in the sluggishly flowing water, stuck on rocks or sticks on the stream's bank. Gravel crunched under her feet as she took a slimy brown stick and poked the slowly spinning wheel of a rusty bicycle chucked into the middle of the stream. The girl peeked through the wheel at something small lying on a rock. Curiosity filled her and she hopped across some stepping stones to the other side. On the little rock was a frog, dead from torture. Sometimes boys would engage in flagitious behaviors, snatching the frogs from the river to torment and dash upon the stones. Small tears trickled down her cheeks, and the girl tipped the moist rock so that the mutilated frog could rest in peace in its natural home in the water. The smell of dead fish rose to her nose, and she stood up, one arm wrapped around a rough old tree trunk. 1

A fly landed on her hand, tickling it slightly. She tilted her head, watching as it rubbed its little legs together, crawling farther away as she pressed her face closer to it. Veiny wings twitched, and then it flew off into the world to lay its maggots in someone's dirty trashcan before it died. 2

The wind picked up a little, blowing the leaves in the treetops, and blowing an empty bag of Doritos across the muddy playground. The little girl stepped over the weather-worn two by four border that lined the playground. Her foot sank a little, the mud bubbling up around the edges of her sneakers, caking them with thick filth. Lifting her foot back up, she shook some of the mud off, droplets of it splashing her bare legs. Deciding it was too muddy to play on the swing set, she stepped back over the border. She wanted to swing - it was her favorite thing to do. It made her feel like she was a bird, flying up out of the world for a little while. She was hand in hand with the sun and clouds, the wind whispering in her ears. And then she would come back down.3

With nothing else to do, she turned to walk up the street. The mobile homes were older and more worn in the section she lived in. In most of the homes, the siding was popped out, and had holes and cracks all through it. That made it colder in the winter, and the tin roofs made it hotter in the summer if there wasn't an air conditioner. Some people tried to make things look nice by making flower gardens, but others just didn't care. 4

Homebound, the girl scuffled through the dirt in the ditches on the side of the road. Clouds of dust followed her shoes, settling behind her and on her white socks. A loud buzz from a saw reverberated through the air. The park manager had ordered all trees to be cut down. The trees behind her house were already taken away, and the ants that lived in them had now made a home in her mother's kitchen. She missed them - she used to climb those trees. Every little knot in the wood was familiar to her. 5

There would be no more climbing trees for the little girl. 6

She sat down on the grass, looking up at a tall, barren trunk of one of the older trees in the park. All of its limbs were sawed off. She could almost hear it crying, "I, too, was beautiful once."7