First Chapter of Deadly Sins: Sloth by Cheryl Bradshaw

Sloth (n.) Habitual disinclination to exertion; indolence; reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness.

Mary Pritchard sat on a wooden chair on her front porch, rocking back and forth, her fingernails digging into the soft, pliable wood atop the sides of the armchair. Day after day, she sat in the same exact spot doing the same exact thing, until eventually she’d scraped off so many layers of wood, her fingers fit inside the grooves her nails had hollowed out. At times she felt guilty about the damage she’d done to the antique piece of furniture, especially since the chair had been passed down from her grandmother to her mother and now to her. But Mary couldn’t help it. The consistent digging eased her frustrations somehow, helping her cope with a man she hated—her neighbor.

Hector, the neighbor who previously owned the house across the street, was a nice man. And clean. Meticulously clean. Just the way Mary liked. His lawn was trimmed, his flowerbeds weeded.

Several months earlier while Hector was outside mowing the lawn, Mary glanced out the kitchen window and noticed something odd. The lawn mower had shut off in the middle of the yard. And Hector was no longer beside it. He was curled into a ball on the ground. She plunged the dish she was scrubbing back into the soapy dishwater and sprinted across the street. But it was too late. He’d had a heart attack. And unlike the others he’d had in the past, this time there was no coming back from it.

Hector was dead.

Less than two weeks later, Hector’s brother Darryl moved into the house, and Hector’s lush landscaping went to hell faster than a mob hit in 1929. Darryl was Hector’s opposite—short, unkempt, and so grossly overweight he waddled instead of walked. He was also lazy. While Mary milled around her own yard each day, she watched Darryl through his living room window. The spectacle was always the same. He sat in a recliner all day, watching TV, only rising occasionally for food and beer. Lots and lots of beer.

Unsure of how to deal with such an unruly neighbor, Mary decided her best option was to take the high road. She baked an apple pie and took it over. But when she knocked, Darryl didn’t come to the door. And he was home. She was sure of it. She could hear him whistling. Frustrated, she plopped the pie down on the doormat and walked away.

Two days later, while on her daily walk, she noticed the pie was still on his doorstep, in the exact spot she’d left it. She snatched it off the porch with one hand, fisted the other, and pounded on the door. Again, there was no answer. She considered smashing the pie into the door, allowing the sticky and now smelly substance to smear to the bottom. But she didn’t. She walked over to his trash can and threw it away.

A week passed before Mary noticed something else: a foul, nose-wrenching odor like weeds burning in a summer wildfire. The wretched smell wafted through the street. And it wasn’t hard to pinpoint the origin.

Now, as she rocked on her chair, she glared at Darryl’s front yard, at a lawn so yellow and brittle and dead, it was almost unrecognizable.

All her work.

All her hard work gone to waste.

Late at night while Darryl slept, Mary didn’t. She dragged a hose from her yard to his, watering his lawn, sometimes even using fertilizer in an attempt to bring any of the lush greenery back to life, but it was to no avail. Although the color had begun to change, the yard was now overrun with weeds and was an eyesore, complete with an old, broken-down truck parked in the driveway. The truck was a new addition, something Darryl had pulled up in only a few hours before. One look at the rusted clunker and Mary had enough. She snapped. And she realized something.

She couldn’t do it anymore.

She couldn’t go on the same way any longer.

Something needed to be done.

She glanced at the time on her watch, then at the loaded gun in her lap, and smiled. It wouldn’t be long now.

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