I Wrote This in a Barn

The window seat looked out across the grassy fields, dipping and curving with the hills. The fields waved to me in shades of green and yellow. Their only interruption was the rusty old barn that sat perched at the edge of our field.

I was curled in a ball, my big headphones covering my ears, the rest of the world blocked out. My laptop sat precariously balanced on my legs as it had done for so long my foot had pins and needles. But the page was still blank.

As I sat morosely staring at my obvious lack of inspiration, I was struck in the head by something soft. It whipped my head to the side fiercely, knocking my headphones and sending stray hairs across my face. I pulled my headphones off, spotted the stray pillow on the floor, and looked up at my mother accusingly.

“You’ve been staring at that without moving for an hour,” she had her hands on her hips. “Go somewhere else."

I rolled my eyes. “Where, exactly?”

My mother just shrugged. “Well, isn’t it about a barn?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“We have one of those, you know.”

“Yeah, but it’s old and crotchety.”

“You’re old and crotchety.”

“Mum!”

“I need you out of the house,” she made shoo-ing motions with her hands. “Your moping is messing with the energy in here.”

I hesitated a moment, but mum still made shoo-ing motions and moved to pick up her sage stick on the cabinet on the far side of the room. I rolled my eyes and picked up my laptop. I slunk away through to the back of the house, kicked the screen door open aggressively, and let it slam closed behind me as I trudged towards the old barn. It became a grey hulking figure the closer I walked, casting a shadow I anxiously stepped under.

I swung the door open and slouched inside, stopping only to peer up at the holes in the roof. The sunlight streamed through the holes, lighting patches of the uneven, dirt-ridden floor.

My mother might have been onto something about moving away from the window seat. Aesthetically, the barn was just what I needed. However, I felt a shiver run through me as I felt the wind pick up despite the structure around me. I could remember all of the times my friends and I would play with the ouija board and unknown entities would rattle and shake through the building, and shadows would creep towards our sleeping bags in the middle of the night. All of this could inspire me, I thought hesitantly.

I had to write a short story set in an old barn as part of a competition. Think, 'Charlotte’s Web'. Nothing had really come to me yet and the deadline was approaching quickly. But, looking around at the idle old barn, I could see my memories and the potential for other things to occur.

I sat down in the middle of the uneven floor, laid the laptop across my knees, and began to type. The story I wrote was about a couple in a barn. They were doing it up, fixing the holes in the roof and the uneven floor, and they were talking. The barn was to be their home. As I wrote, the characters began to fight, arguing over their differences.

I heard a scraping sound overhead, but I looked up and saw nothing. A chill went through me. I shuddered and looked around again. Entirely empty, not even a mouse. As I regained reality, I snapped my mouth closed and I snorted at myself. I was acting like a child again.

I returned my attention to the story and reread over what I had just written. It wasn't quite right and editing it achieved nothing.

I started again.

The police were tracking a suspect to an old barn. Their flashlights swept through the tall grass, footsteps crunching as they circled in. They entered the barn and inside found a boy. A very young boy, hiding among the hay bales.

A wind startled me this time, blowing through the holes of the barn so hard that it whistled and whined. The entire barn shifted and creaked around me. I stood up this time, and moved to the door. I propped it open, scared that if the structure came down around me, I wouldn't be able to get out.

When I returned to my laptop, I started again.

I wrote like I was writing a children’s book. It was a story about a barn filled with animals. Each was friendly and obliging, but each was trapped inside due to the storm. Then a sly fox skittered into their midst and told them the story of how he came to be in their barn.

"Get out."

I jumped at the sound of the gravelly voice. It felt like it had swivelled through my mind rather than my ears. It was close, I could have sworn I felt breath against my cheek. I clutched at my laptop, squeezing too tight. I turned my head this way and that, eyes wide. My chest was tight, my breath coming out in little huffs. I saw nothing. The barn was empty. It just seemed darker than before.

"Hello?"

No one answered. Nothing happened. I sat in silent terror for a moment. My laptop squeezed in my hands, my folded knees twisted me up into a ball. But after a moment more, the terror turned to frustrated confusion and dark humour.

A cloud must have come overhead when I wasn't paying attention. The voice must have just been me freaking out again. I had been jumpy since I first arrived, scaring myself with all of the memories of my childhood. I choked out a strangled laugh. I was just being silly.

This time I did not start again. Instead, I lay down on the floor of the barn and stared up through the hole in the roof above me. A calm came over me as I sucked up the warmth of the old barn and noted all of the small noises that surrounded me. A little scrape here as the barn swayed, a little crunch there as the wind moved something else. The creak of the old barn door. All of the sounds coincided with something entirely natural.

I breathed fresh air in through my nose and out through my mouth. I closed my eyes. I was slightly wistful, thinking of each of the things that could make up a story. Any story, so long as it was fun to write.

Lying like this, the story took shape for me slowly, coming forth from the depths of my mind. It crawled out, forming in its entirety. Only then did I sit up and reach for my laptop and begin to type. Only then did I see a pair of red eyes staring at me from the corner of the barn.