Ms. Evangeline slept with a pale crucifix fixed above her bedpost and a silver dagger cushioned inbetween her lush pillow and its silk case. She was a wilted woman: her knees sagged low and her cheeks creased deeply. Every night, she ventured to her second floor bedroom at exactly 8 PM. If one were to disturb her past this time, she would track them down by memorizing their face from her paned window, and in due time, one would receive a hand-written letter of contempt urging them to never return - filled with vague threats and old English words. Although she gained a slight jubilance from repelling the trespassers, her house hardly received any visitors, due to her pronounced maliciousness. Her home was located on a street of the most beautiful mundanity, for each house seemingly was the same: verdant, manicured lawns and white picket fences and blue shingled roofs. The homes themselves were all formed of brick, which looked to have been built decades previously due to their evident dullness. Each of the pointed-hat clones had two cars in the driveways that lay beside their bricks, except for Ms. Evangeline - she was too ragged and wrinkled to drive. During her sojourn on the Earth, she married thrice, each time to careless sons of rich fathers, yet none of them ever left her any money. And, although she was penniless, she adored the posh life: being considered “frugal” was quite the fear of hers. Her only income came from the occasional cleaning of a neighbor’s house or selling of an heirloom. The neighborhood would have taken pity on her, if it were not for her adamance on never accepting their help. Even though they often brought her charity, she claimed their money was tinged. This was not an outlandish claim. The town was notorious for their sins: especially the whiskey-scented mayor. His loud mouth was the reason the rest of the church ladies migrated out of town, but Ms. Evangeline was neither one for change, nor one for giving up. Instead, she converted her modest home into a white lair where his faithless words could never reach her. This lifestyle provided her with a quaint security, yet there was one problem that arose during the late autumn and early winter: the crows. Every year, they flew in from out of town and sat squarely on her white picket fence without an urge to leave until the spring. She was forced to stare at them from the windows in her dining, living, and bed rooms. They were a speckle of bleak imperfection shedding fallen feathers on her lawn in - what she seemed to think - a veiled attempt at mockery. And, naturally, their witch-like caws haunted her through the spring, the summer, and worst of all, her slumber.
The population of her town was meek and the children were bushy-tailed. It was a neat village: the streets of similar homes all spewed out of the agrestic town center on top of a flourishing hill. The lively oaks and swaying maples and spiny evergreens loomed over the concrete streets atop of the hill. There were a few shops, tailors, and rowhomes, but the predominant landmark was the clocktower. Moss grew down its red brick sides, and the clock’s luster had not faded after over a century of life. And, it still chimed too, at the top of every hour.
There were racquet courts strewn throughout the town, for it was the only competition allowed. The sturdy walls, which shielded the courts from the roads, were plastered with andesite, while the juvenile faces beyond their crevices were plastered with a unique contempt. All of the children in town were raised to not become their parents. Evidently, this created a sense of looming failure in their minds, as drunkenness and depression were as inevitable to them as death. Moreover, they were forbidden from recreation as well as any form of competition, as these acts had the possibility of further corruption, except for racquet sports: badminton and tennis and squash. At first, no competition, including racquet sports, was permitted, but the town realized all too quickly that without rivalry, children were inescapably prone to other acts in order to relieve their rage. These included such misdemeanors as slashing tires and shoplifting, to such acts as arson and alleged murder. Evidently, the mayor made a decision - the only important one he ever made in his life - to allow what was seen as the most leisurely of games, the racquet sports. He affirmed boisterously to the town that “these activities pose no threats to the minds of the younger generation.” Even though he was correct at first, rather quickly, a pattern appeared.
Without any other applicable recreation and contention, the adolescents began unloading all of their stresses and worries and fears into their racquet playing, creating unusual feuds. Feet stamped the courts with such vigor that the whole world seemed to shake, and smoke protruded out of the players’ nostrils and ears as their eyebrows furrowed. They all had dark, creeping eyes too, watching the game at play with such intent, the world around them vanished. This ire was seemingly harmless, until the losers started becoming vengeful and the winners started becoming conceited. That’s when the fire in their blood boiled out onto the streets, with arson rates rising seventy-five percent in the five year period after the Racquet Act was passed.
Ms. Evangeline knew their blasphemy did not end there, for her keen eye realized, from studying the morning paper, that the missing person cases and the teen DUI’s took a sharp increase too, even if the rest of the town tried to ignore it. Her world became more enclosed during this period: she had bars added to her windows and she survived for entire weeks off of packaged food. She would never risk coming into contact with such sin.
One day, however, a group of boys, who smelled like hot contempt, took their grievances too far. The wind in the air was becoming more crisp and the autumnal leaves had already fallen. All of the neighbors wore down coats and padded pants, and they hardly left their homes. And of course, for Ms. Evangeline, it was an even more treacherous time of year, for the crows had made their annual return. They invaded her yard and her picket fence and every morning, when they caught her eye, she heaved a great sigh. On the night the Boys ravaged the town, the crows were still sitting squarely on her fence, shrouded in the night. Their caws were almost a beckoning call for the Boys, as their rampage only began when the town had fallen asleep, and the only sound was the crows.
The town center was a jungle of shrubbery and trees, and it sat only two short blocks from Ms. Evangeline’s home. When the Boys arrived with pints of gasoline in their hands and matches deep in their pockets, their intent was clear. The old clock tower would only chime once more, to mark the eleventh hour of the night, before it all came crashing down. Along with it came the burning of the lush greenery and the dissolution of the shop and tavern awnings. The flames reflected in the Boys’ mad eyes, like mirrors into their destructive minds. After some time of watching the turmoil, one of the boys stammered in a fit of regret. The rest laughed emptily, and they turned their gazes upon him. The docile boy had no chance to feel remorse, as before he knew it, he was hurtling toward the flames to be their next victim.
As the moon continued to carry through the sky with negligence, the flames carried themselves across the town. It was quarter to midnight by the time the bright blighting roused Ms. Evangeline. It took her a few moments to collect her composure before she traversed to her paned window. It was at that moment that her white picket fence burnt to a crisp. She watched it turn to gray, to black, and finally to nothing at all, with a blank expression in her eyes. The smoke began to travel to her roof and through her windows, as the scent of smoke covered her home. Looking at her scarred yard, she laughed with the only clean air left. She bellowed and giggled with all of her old might, watching what had become of her picket fence and the crows who had occupied it. When she did at last perish, her final words escaped her lips with a unique hope and jubilance for Ms. Evangeline.
She uttered, grinning madly, "They'll never be back", and neither she thought, would the corruption they brought.