Sylvia felt very sneaky. She was dressed head to toe in black, save her neon green nail polish, and she was controlling her breathing so as not to make even the slightest of sounds. Looking down at her hands, she decided to grab a pair of black gloves. She needed that extra bit to put her over the edge of sneakiness. 

Looking at her black watch, Sylvia realized it was the appointed time: 3:51 AM. She grabbed the bottle at her feet and opened the door, causing a loud BEEP to resonate throughout the house. Even though she had been expecting it, the sound still made her cringe. She stood perfectly still for three seconds, making sure the alarm hadn’t woken her family members. Once she was sure, she continued on, making sure to leave the front door wide open so she could safely and quietly get back inside. 

Once outside, Sylvia paused again  this time to steel her nerves. She was quite sure that what she was about to do was decidedly not environmentally friendly and quite illegal – not to mention very un-neighborly. All the same, it had to be done. It was for the greater good.

“For the greater good,” she whispered to herself, and then she began to walk along the sidewalk. She stopped at the house next door and stared at the tree in front of her. 

This was no ordinary tree. It might not have even been a tree at all, but a soul-sucking vortex of pain and torment; Sylvia wasn’t sure. It wasn’t very tall – probably only ten feet or so – but it had extremely long, extremely thin branches that jutted upward and out over the sidewalk. Sylvia knew from experience that these branches were really pointy, and running into them while, say, mowing the lawn wasn’t fun at all. The tree also never seemed to have leaves; it was weirdly dead-looking year round, as though it were an old lady whose family was only trying to push back the inevitable. Sylvia was simply going to… help it along. From the tree’s perspective, it was a mercy killing. The tree would thank her from its tree heaven.

After staring at the tree and reminding herself that this was the right thing to do, Sylvia slowly and dramatically unscrewed the lid of the bottle. The smell of bleach immediately hit her, as a train would hit that car that was stopped on the tracks at a red light. She breathed in through her mouth to clear her head and turned the bottle upside down over the base of the trunk, being careful not to get any on herself. When she felt it was time, she went around to the other side of the tree – still pouring – and aimed for the base of the trunk again, stopping only when the bottle was empty this time. 

Sylvia felt very proud of herself, but she knew she had to keep focus or she would get caught. She screwed the lid back on the empty bottle and made her way back toward her own house. Just as she stepped into her own yard, her neighbor’s porch light came on.