The Barn

by Frances Tiffin

The heat was heavy. Warm breezes tossed the long grass. The rippling waves drawn on the fields created the false promise of respite, for though the long blades glistened and swelled, the winds they danced with were merely ghosts. They never reached the porch.

The roof of the house blistered and sagged. The old house had seen summers crueler than this, as had the man on the porch who smoked from a pipe. The woman advancing on the driveway perhaps had not.

As the sounds of crunching gravel and a car engine grew, the man on the porch’s gaze turned from the fields. He watched the car with eyes too small for the bags that hung below. He rose; a teakettle was screaming in the other room. The man on the porch entered the kitchen. The screen door closed too hard.

The man in the kitchen removed the kettle from the stove to quiet the wails. The car was closer now, and he poured water into a mug. The car turned sharply to park next to the house. He added a tea bag. The engine cut off, and the parking break cranked. He stepped outside and the screen slammed shut again. The sound echoed to the fields.

When the woman opened the car door, the man on the porch blew on his tea. A sliver of sunlight found refuge on the hood of her car and pierced his watery eyes. He blinked. The sun did not relent. The man on the porch took a sip of his tea.

The woman was wrong, because she was wearing shorts, and because she was smiling. She had a bag on her shoulder, even. The man looked at her and stretched his mouth to return the smile.

The woman shielded the sun with her hand. She stepped onto the stairs of the porch. She looked uncomfortable, because her hair was pulled back and she was wearing a tank top. Her face was already touched with pink from the heat. She could hide the light, but the woman had no sway over summer.

When they grasped hands, the man’s lips were still pulled taut. He gestured for her to join him on the porch, where it was shady. She thanked him. He offered her a drink.

“No, thank you. I’ve got a water.” She took out a bottle of water, which was in her bag.

There were two chairs. They sat down opposite of each other. They could both see the fields in front of the house.

The man on the porch puffed at his pipe. He offered her a smoke.

“No, thank you. I’ve got a pack.” She opened her bag as though to prove it. “I’m trying to lay off, though.”

The man watched the bag. He watched as she dropped a strap from her shoulder to open it. It was fascinating.

The woman grinned again, which he found odd, since nothing particular had happened. Then her grin turned to a grimace and she squirmed.

“Aren’t you hot?” asked the woman.

The man looked down at his jacket and jeans. Then he realized he was still wearing his hat.

“Yes.”

So he took it off, because she was a lady.

She gave him a funny look, which was pretty.

“Have you received any of my letters?” The woman crossed her legs.

He did that, too. But it felt awkward, so instead he sipped his tea.

“Yes,” he said after he swallowed.

The woman nodded. Sweat had broken out on her neck. It was bright, and her skin gleamed.

“And?” she prompted.

The man on the porch watched the long blades sway in the breeze. His face was crowded. The woman’s face was expectant, which was wrong.

“I don’t read them.”

“Pardon?” she asked.

“I don’t read them.” This time he said it louder, because he was surer.

The woman did not smile, which he thought was odd because this time she looked peculiar. The man glanced at her, but had to look away because of her eyes. He blinked.

“You don’t read them?”

“I don’t read letters.”

There was a small table between them. The man puffed again at his pipe. But then he felt bad, since he was talking to her, so he put it down. He drank his tea instead.

“What do you mean you don’t read letters?”

“I can’t anymore.”

“You can’t read anymore?”

“I’ve forgotten how.”

There was sweat on her forehead. The long grass sighed.

She hardly wanted much to do with him, so he asked, “Do you want to see the barn?”

He stood up. The woman was nearly glaring, which was pretty.

He gulped the last of his tea and gave her his hand. She took it, but he could tell she didn’t want to. He frowned, but he turned his head so she wouldn’t see.

The door to the barn creaked open. Sun spilled through the holes of the roof. Heat seeped through the walls.

The woman gasped.

Small stacks of letters lay on the faded floor, each more yellowed than the last. The man counted, but he couldn’t remember if that was the thing to do. The woman walked around, checking each pile. The man watched the way her bag swung as she squatted and walked.

“How many people have come here?”

The man shrugged. He couldn’t remember their names.

“Have they all come for the same reason?” she asked him. Her voice did not echo in the barn. In fact, it sounded flat.

“Yes.”

If he had taken the moment to read the letters from the woman, he would have learned that she came bearing an offer of escape from the heat. Perhaps if he had read them, he would have been free of this purgatory.

As much as he yearned for release, the man from the porch could never leave the barn. The woman had made this mistake, as had the others who had come before.

“Why haven’t you done anything? Responded?”

The woman turned to look at him and the way her hair followed reminded the man of a light wind. His eyes widened. The man closed the space between them.

Her skin was slick at her shoulder, and little hairs stuck to the nape of her neck.

“You people will never learn. I cannot escape the heat.”

He grasped her neck and her face contorted.

She died with a grimace that looked almost like a smile. It was pretty.

The man stepped cautiously out of the barn with the woman in his arms. His hands clutched her, while her arms were limp in her lap. He could feel that she was still sticky from sweat. His feet felt odd on the overgrown gravel, quite unlike the porch.

He walked out to the field of grass, watching the fickle breeze hungrily. As he approached the shores of the rippling waves, his grip on the woman tightened. But when he stepped into the field, the winds died. The woman suddenly felt heavy in his arms, and he wanted nothing to do with her.

He felt the earth beneath his shoes and the weight of the woman in his arms. Finally he found a place. Here, he remembered, the winds never touched the long blades. There was neither dancing, nor swells.

The man from the porch laid the woman down. He fetched a shovel and his hat. After he had dug a hole that fit and sweat slipped from his fingers and nose, he laid her in it. He looked at her and how she was better now. The emptiness in her face was fitting to this place.

He covered her up, scoop by scoop of dirt. When he was done, he waited. He waited with his arms splayed, his clothes stark against the green of the long grass.

He waited and he waited.

He felt small tickles at first, and his heart skipped. Soft kisses grew to fervent caresses. The wind rightly bounded now, and the grass was beginning to sway. The man stretched his face and this time his smile was right. Torrents of wind ravished him, and the ghosts began to dance in earnest, and he danced with them.

As the wind buffeted him, he heard laughter and questions and smiles. He ran with them. The wave was gaining speed and he felt his feet lift from the ground. He hurtled toward the house.

The wind ripped apart the old house with its old barn, and the man felt his body torn apart as well. He laughed in the wind and the sun that beat down. The barn sighed as the winds destroyed it. And as his body was pulled to pieces, he too sighed.

In the ends of the flurry, the ghosts that danced settled. The heat enveloped the man irrevocably. He was finally free, which was right.