The Old Barn

The old barn still stands. Barely. And I stand before it. A place where once we barely ever stood still, but now you’ll lay still forever. The old barn has succumbed to the relentless attrition of time. As did we. We let go. We let the barn decline and we declined in parallel. But that’s what happens. There’s no great mystery. Time, and neglect, and wear degrade everything. Sometimes that wear causes friction. Sometimes that friction ignites.

The old barn still smells as I remember. Damp, and rot and the almost sweet redolence of ancient machinery. Of rust and oil. The olfactory system is the closest thing we have to a time machine. It only goes backwards. You can’t change anything. You just sense the past. I’m overwhelmed by memories. Nostalgia grips me. I douse the past in petrol. I overwhelm the past within a bloom of benzene. I’m snapped back to the present.

Outside the sky above the old barn boils. The clouds brawl. There’s a distant rumble. I could say it’s just like when we used to fight. Another parallel. The whole of nature, as far as the eye can see, reflecting my grief. We find parallels, and meaning, and symbolism, and analogy in what we can. Like now. It’s pure hubris. It’s sentimentality. It’s just weather, and coincidence, and a desperate attempt to find meaning. Or to justify why. Nature, or the universe, or anything. None of it gives a shit about what we do. Or what I’ve done.

My mind drifts to folly again. I see the features in the old barn’s countenance that used to scare me as a kid. Pareidolia. That’s what it’s called. I think you taught me that. The smashed in windows for eyes have seen much. Much too much. They’ve seen what I’ve done. The gaping maw where the barn door once was, and the sunken eye socket windows. Like an open jawed skull. The old barn is aghast. No it’s not. It’s just a barn. It would be though, if it could be. After all it’s seen and after what I’ve done. What have I done?

We burnt our bridges one by one. But there’s this one last one. The one true symbolic bridge. The bridge to our past. It has to go and so you go with it. I fumble with the matches. I wanted to give this the ceremony it deserves. The reverence. You deserve that. But I fumble. I should have thought the words out better. But I mumble. I’m sorry that it’s come to this. Let this fire. Be something. Or mean something. I don’t know.

I strike the match, and that can’t be undone. There are some things that just can’t be undone. It doesn’t matter how hard we try. That match will just be ash. All the king’s horses. It can’t be put together again. Things can be rebuilt. Bridges can be rebuilt. Is anything beyond repair? Some things are. Rebuilding something doesn’t make it the same as it was. The old broom in the old barn.

That undone match drops. Its tiny flame drops with it. The trail of fuel ignites. Slower than I thought it would. But it makes it. Wumph. The old barn gasps as it goes up in flames. That huge mouth tears itself wide in horror and the eyes burn with fury. It sucks in air, and it spews out fire. It was the only witness. I couldn’t let it stand. Petrol, and soot, and flame and emotion. I’ve planted a marker to travel back to. Whether I like it or not. The heat and the light bathe my face and it’s just something else that can’t be undone.