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King of the barn

By Michèle Nardelli

By Michèle NardelliPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
3
Image by Zachariah Smith

This is my space. Its dark but I am perfectly adjusted to this domain – I see everything.

Padding softly between the ordered shelves, I know where every shiny chisel and crumpled tarpaulin sits. I know the curve of the old axe blades, the spotlights that peek out from a canvass that covers the old car.

Night and day, I am here, vigilant.

There are the familiar sounds – the creaking of the wooden pales, the wind flapping old coats on hooks near the big barn doors, the scratch of beetles as they scrumble in the dirt, the pigeons c...crooding in the loft, and their flurrying wings as they come and go.

Other sounds put me on high alert – opening hinges, rapid footsteps, the woot of predatory owls.

Then the hackles rise, and I wait, watching…ready to pounce.

On soft summer days, curled up in a pile of old clothes I am warm and sleepy, my eyes closed, but my ears are still alert.

When the breeze rises, the dust sparkles gold and silver in the streams of sunlight that beat through the upper vents – floating and twirling like magical snow.

Then, I climb up high on the rafters and marvel with satisfaction at this wonderful world.

I have been waiting here contentedly for quite some time now, waiting for him to come.

****

When I first came here, I was small and inexperienced. Nestled in his jacket like a ball of wool, I remember how big the world seemed.

On the porch, in the shadow of a huge rocking chair I sipped warm tea from a saucer near his large boots and trembled at the vastness of things – a great openness of trees and paddocks and mountains too large to define, too big to put my mind at ease.

But in the barn, I could get the measure of things. Four walls, lofts to climb, timber to scratch, creatures to hunt, and warm, safe places to watch the passage of time.

He placed me in a basket near the lathe and I watched him while he worked, the air thick with the smell of turned wood and pipe smoke as he transformed timber into tables and chairs.

This was the rhythm of our days. Up at dawn, doors opened wide to the sunrise.

The buzz of blades carving through wood. Him moving lithely back and forth. Me watching proceedings from above.

We’d break for breakfast mid-morning. Tuna in a tin cup. Hot tea and biscuits.

He would load his makings in the back of the car and the engine would rumble to life while I watched cautiously from the shadows, before drifting off to sleep somewhere until he returned.

Nothing changed but the seasons.

Each day I welcomed him and each night I bid him adieu.

“Goodnight, King,” he always says as he hauls the big doors together. Then the click of the latch signals the end of his working day and the start of my patrol.

*****

It has been a while now since I have seen him, but I am not bothered really.

I’ll be here when he arrives. He knows that.

I do look forward to the touch of his big hands and I love our conversations, he talks, and I follow him around agreeing with everything he says.

I like to watch him work – steady, organised, carving, lifting, nailing – he works hard, and I respect that.

It’s not for me though.

In the meantime, I explore, I play a little with the bits and bobs in the barn. I relax, stretch, loll about.

Mainly, I watch and listen.

Patrol the perimeter, keep things in order…waiting for him.

Short Story
3

About the Creator

Michèle Nardelli

I write...I suppose, because I always have. Once a journalist, then a PR writer, for the first time I am dabbling in the creative. Now at semi-retirement I am still deciding what might be next.

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