Below Rainier

For years and years there lived a couple in the vast fields of central Washington state. Too poor to go anywhere else, or even to live in a house for that matter, so they lived in a pretty red barn. This barn, when first bought, was tall and glorious, with fresh red paint, and high white doors, and was also home to a coop of chickens and two young cows. This young couple lived in the barn loft, and slept on a hay bed covered only in a sheet and two blankets. The years were not easy on this barn though. Between the torrents of cold rain or a cloudless sky giving way to an unforgiving sun, the barn faded, rotted, and cracked.

These were the years when Bram Terence, the older of the two, was working in the new factory down the road. His job was to ensure the machines would not break down, or if they did, to fix them. The lumber mill is a sad place to work for one such as Bram, for he couldn’t bear to see all the beautiful red cedars cut down and refined. He hated it, but he had to afford food to support his little farm.

Eventually, the barn became too worn down to be reasonably lived in, so Otis Terence, the younger of the couple, took it upon themself to repair the barn. They filled the cracks in the roof and retiled it, replaced rotten boards on the walls, and repainted the barn a nice royal blue, with once-again white doors.

The years grew tiresome on the couple, though. They grew old, and Bram retired from the mill. Having spent his years collecting old metals and bits and bobs, he took up tinkering in the old barn. Otis, though younger, was growing more frail and weary as the years dragged on, and Bram soon had to put his hobby to the side while he cared for Otis in his final years.

“Bram, dear, I have one request for you, before I go.”

Bram couldn’t stand to see his partner so weak and so tired speaking like this. “Otis, please, don’t talk like that. You have plenty more time with me. Please.”

Otis shook his head, though it was barely perceptible. “No, Bram. Listen, I love this countryside. I so much love the sight of the mountain in the distance. When I go, if you’re able, I wish to be buried somewhere on that mountain.”

Bram replied softly, “I love you, so I will do what I can. But I hope that you will stay with me as long as you can.”

“I will.”

Otis died that night, in the arms of the man they loved most, in the barn they called home for so long. And from that night forward, Bram began to think of ways to fulfill his love’s wish to distract himself from the pain of the loss of the only person he’d truly loved for so long. He couldn’t sleep, so he worked. He couldn’t stand the sight of his unmoving Otis, so he put them in a box for safekeeping until he could get them up into the mountain.

Days of constant toil, Nights of sleepless work, eventually led to Bram’s great wonder. He had previously concluded that he is far too old to make a trek like that up into the mountains, especially with his late partner in tow, so his solution was to bring his barn with him. And he knew he might not make it all the way to the mountain, but he had to try. For Otis. His hard work, hundreds of hours tinkering, and imagination led to putting his barn on huge metal legs.

There were six legs, insect-like by design, with huge rubber tires laid horizontally for the footpads. From the first day of a final working design, Bram had 3 more days of work ahead of fixing anything he’d missed or that broke. In these 3 days, he led his old cows, 3 pigs, and chickens to his neighbors, and explained that he didn’t expect to return.

When Bram finally set off, the land around him knew it. As the barn lifted from the ground, earth crumbled and concrete cracked, metal creaked, and the ground shook with every step. It was breathtaking. Over long expanses of hills, across rivers and valleys and fields this barn thudded and squealed. Day-in and day-out it moved, slowly traversing central Washington westward. On the fifth day, one of the legs snapped, and crumbled, bringing the whole wacky contraption to a halt, and the barn to pieces on the ground with a deafening crash. Poor Bram Terence, heartbroken by the death of his loved one and now by the destruction of his life-long home, pulled Otis from his box, and began digging where he was.

While Bram dug, he thought about his journey. He had seen so much since leaving the mill town, rivers, valleys. The mountain now loomed ever closer, almost tauntingly, but absolutely beautiful with its snow-capped enormity. He now realized that while he had not made it up the mountain, surely the view from here beats the view from the top and that Otis would be content knowing Bram had tried so hard.

With two deep holes now dug, he placed Otis in his final resting place and covered him. And for himself, he laid down in the space next to his love, and was finally able to shut his eyes for the last time.