The Barn

Flash Fiction Short Story

The barn slants up towards the sky and I squint against the right. It’s not the good kind of yellow he used to love, or the soft white moonlight I used to wake in. Its a blinding grey that only overcast can conjure. The sheet of clouds hangs heavy, choking the sun.

Rotting two-by-fours stretch away from the dilapidated building. Like splintering bones, they reach up, independent of their framework and try to piece the shield of grey. The red paint, bleached by decades of unprotected sunlight has begun to chip away. In certain spots, it has simply leached in to the wood. It has given up on trying to be colorful. What’s the point in attempting to mask the truth of this place.

The grand swinging twin doors have long since abandoned their hinges. Now, the opening looks like a gaping mouth, laughing at me.

I found my son hanging from the rafters on a sunny day in May. He was always spending his time in the barn instead of helping me down at the shop. I didn’t think anything of his absence and gave him the space he asked for. And I found him, swinging slightly in the breeze that was blowing through the cracks in the walls. His drawings were torn to shreds beneath him.

This place housed his secrets and hid his tears from the pitiless world. It was his solace and it will always know him better than I ever did.

photograph by Tim Mossholder