2Where the Green Grass Grows
The grass was yellow as the sun helped it to live. It was yellow and long and strong or so she hoped. But the yellow grass was a sign- for what she wasn't sure- a sign for those who looked at those kinds of things. In fact her father had stopped mowing the yard when the grass turned yellow. The neighbors had complained and they had been given warning but still they let the grass grow. Her mother of course was uncomfortable with everyone coming over to stare at the yellow grass. Her brothers avoided the house at all cost while her father charmed everyone.
Her mother by the fourth week had taken to staying inside the house leaving only at night. She didn't want to talk about the yellow grass that grew in their yard. She didn't care that it felt like regular blue grass1 and how they didn't have any crab grass2 either. Her mother cared that everyone, or almost everyone, wanted to talk about the grass that grew in their yard. Her brothers on the other hand, while they didn't care, didn't want to be around when their father was charming old and young alike. They wanted to have a life outside the yellow grass.
No matter where they were people loved to talk to her father. And her father loved to talk to everyone about his yard. He'd invited them over for tea, coffee, hot coco while severing them off of her mother's grandmother's plates. Sandwiches, biscuits and chips that had always been made at night when her mother was awake.
She noticed three months after the yellow grass had begun to grow that now even at night her father had visitors. She would then walk to her mother's room to check on her. She would sit for hours just doing her homework as her mother shifted under the blankets. At eleven she'd go to bed only to get up at four in the morning. Her mother was always in the kitchen making sandwiches or cookies or biscuits whatever she had bought at the store. Though now it was mainly up to her to go to the store since her mother refused to go outside before midnight. Her father of course would always go to work and talk about the grass then come home and talk about the grass.
"I'm staying late today," she told her mother.
"Late?" her mother asked.
"Yes, I'm part of key club and I have to help out," she replied.
"Fine,"
The walk to the bus stop was short- it was in front of a stop sign at the top of the street. She waited there every day with a few other classmates. They usually waited silence. The bus would come and then they would be on their way to Middleton High School.
"I heard about your dad," said a girl as they boarded the bus.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"How the grass is green a again. People are talking about it," the girl told her.
"What? I just saw it, it was yellow," she replied.
"I know but the city came to mow the lawn. It's green again," the girl told her. they sat on opposite seats so they could talk face to face.
"Let just mowed it?" she asked.
"Yeah, your mom was out there cheering," the girl shrugged.
Indeed when the girl returned from key club the grass was green, short and like all the other yards. She walked slowly towards the house. Her parents would probably fighting over the grass again. The door however was open, other bad sign, and she saw her mother's things packed. There was also her brothers and her things sitting by the door in travel bags, the old house key and a letter to her father from her mother.
"Mom? Dad?" she called.
She went to the kitchen first, the dish lay in the sink waiting to be cleaned and a glass of apple juice sat on the counter. The living room had the TV on loudly as it flickered through commercials- her brother's shoes by the couch. She went up stairs the lights on in her mother and brother's room. The bathroom door was closed and the TV in her father's room was making a static noise.
The room smelled of vomit as the walls in front of her was painted a dark red. It smelled metallic and the body in front of her didn't look like her mother. It was her brother who jumped out of the closet knife in hand. The pain was almost unbearable, the shocked look in her brother's eyes was painful as she staggered to her knees.
"Mallory!" it was the last thing she heard as she blinked hoping she would wake up once she closed them.
1 Bluegrass, which has green leaves, derives its name from the seed heads which are blue when the plant is allowed to grow to its natural height of two to three feet.
2 Crabgrass is classified by many as a weed
Well this ends Green Grass Grows. It was inspired by the song Where the Green Grass Grows thus the title of the collection and last chapter. I hope you all enjoyed reading the stories as much as I had writing them! I will be posting two different type of collections. One will probably be horror, general stuff and the other maybe romance drama? Who cares? lol