Barn | Heather Zundel

The fence leaned, old posts sagged from their long vigil upon the empty landscape. Tufts of yellowed grass choked around the poles, while weeds of faded green occupied what little space could be had. An older man walked through the fields of gold and abandoned barely - not old because of his age, he was not yet past his prime, old because of the way he carried himself. It was as if every step bore the weight of the world upon him – Atlas himself, stumbling, but with every footstep tried to hide his burden.

It was beautiful, he decided. Barren, yes, desolate even, but it was the quiet solace he sought and he thought he could hear whispers through the barely that spoke to him, soothing his soul. He did not know the place, but he felt as if it knew him, and he welcomed it. He had no direction, sought none and took none, but the old barn attracted him somehow. Its faded and peeling paint, its planks of cracked timber, the holes, the splinters, the rusted locks, all beckoned to him. He felt a kinship to such a thing, old, forgotten, yet still standing.

His eyes roved over the great structure, his eyes bright yet distant. A smile played strongly about his pressed lips, yet it was empty, hollow, like something forced. He walked around the barn in its entirety, first the south wall, then the west, moving clockwise until he at last reached the east wall. There he spied something hidden and long since buried among the tall grass. He pulled and pushed aside the yellow stalks, until at last he uncovered a small red tricycle, the kind a young child would ride.

The man's hands trembled, and as he lifted one to his face, the light struck the tears brimming in his once steady eye. Instantly he buried his face in the inside of his coat, trying to stifle to sobs he had suppressed this long while. A child's bike, buried under so much grass, yet it looked almost new, as if waiting for the child to return and ride on top of its squeaky wheels once more. Time passed, swiftly for the tricycle, it had lived a long time in its forgotten state, but an eternity for the man beside it. So lost inside himself and his tears that he did not notice the sun pass in its flight, not the rising chill of the evening air, he did not even feel the scrap of yellow paper slip from his hands, to be quickly carried off by the wind.