The Barn and Her Stars

“Well, would you look at that...” Mother lifted a trembling finger towards the midnight horizon. The wind gently caressed her pale, nimble palms, and a fountain began to bloom in the corners of her wispy, willowed eyes. She had only but a few tender, silver hairs. Only a few tender months left. “The stars decided to visit us again. It’s been too long.”

“Did you miss them?”

A glaze manifested in the landscape of mother’s eyes, and her chest breathed the melodies of the cool, summer mist. At times I thought I could see valleys inside of her. Green ones that ventured for miles and sang sweet lullabies. Yellow ones filled to the brim with daisies and dandelions. Blue ones with galloping stallions and trusty steeds. Dark ones developed in the mysteries of sorrow.

“A lot.”

“Maybe one day I can convince them to visit us more often.”

Her eyes smiled, and for a moment, my heart did too.

“Don’t worry about that. They’ll come back if it’s meant to be. If not…” a pause, a heartbeat, a secret. “Then maybe they fell out of love with what they were seeing.”

“Will it be our fault if the stars leave?”

She smiled, she looked so melodic now, so fragile.

“I don’t know. That’s not something I’ve figured out quite yet."

There’s a rotting barn on Elm street, resting in the middle of abandoned wheat fields, representing a refuge for the restless. If you brought a lighter with you, you’d be able to light a fire using the straw strewn upon the stained concrete. Talk of the town is that it’s haunted by spirits both pure and evil. Some kids go there to do things they wouldn’t be allowed to do at their own house… things like living. Adults go there to escape reality. Animals go there to find shelter for the blizzard-like nights. Others go there to weep in the surrounding willow trees. We went there to weep too, and to smile, and to laugh, and to live to die. I went there to breathe in the past, to view her amber eyes one final time.

“You think they’ll ever find us here?” I mumbled.

“Eventually. Until then, I’d say we have infinity.” Scott pulled out the plaid cotton blanket from his sack, and gently wrapped our souls beneath it. I could feel his breath against my temple, it was cold out there, warm in here. Dim in here, a prisoner out there.

“Infinity will catch up with us.” The barn looked the same as that night. Mama, the stars aren’t out anymore, but I can imagine them staring down at us along with you. I can hear them during my midnight strolls.

“That’s why I said eventually, love.” His lips gently pressed against the few stray hairs that had escaped from my ponytail. Mama used to wear ponytails.

“We’re the lucky ones, aren’t we?”

“We’ve made it this far.”

Somewhere in the abyss, there are demons hunting the nimble and the mute. Maybe they could smell the peaches and the stench of hay bales. I hoped they couldn’t. I was scared of the dark. Even more scared of losing this old, tear-filled barn that I called home. When I close my eyes, I can hear her heart inside of my own chest, beating in rhythm to an old Shania Twain song, and screaming the lyrics until stained glass begins to shatter.

“Are you scared?” I whispered.

“I used to be.” Scott squinted through the faded mahogany doors. It was quiet in the world beyond. I wondered who was awake, how many people like him were ravishing the remains of pure soil. Where did the good wander off to?

“What happened?”

“I found you.” He peered down at an ant that was moving slowly across the pavement, seemingly running in circles in search of something. “I think death would be better if I were with you. I’d like to believe that.”

“I’m still scared.”

“You shouldn’t be…” Scott trailed off, slowly biting the bottom of his lip. “You’re gonna go someplace good, I know you are. Me on the other hand…” He looked up at the ceiling and it’s chipped, oak rafters. At times, I could feel the atmosphere speaking back to him. “I don’t know where I’m going.”

“But I wanna be with you. I wanna come with you.” I was looking up at him, but he was looking towards the Heavens.

A small chuckle escaped his lips, but it was weary. Calloused. Broken.

“You’re too pure for this world.” His hand gently reached for mine, but mine was shaking when he took it up into his. “Everyone thinks you’re weak. You feel things they’re incapable of feeling.”

“What do you think?”

“I think they’re idiots.” Scott looked down at my hand briefly before pulling me up. “Here. I have something to show you.”

“Spirits of the land?”

“Something better.”

And the darkness began to fade, lurking in the shadows of the land, and watching, waiting for a time to pounce, a time to thrive, a time to die.

They say you only live once... but living in that barn felt like living a trillion memories on repeat. Lost rhythms crashed into each other like tidal waves competing for first place. Tears waddled through deeper waters than themselves. Fires started and burned further on their own, without the helping hands. Scott sang lullabies to calm my fears at night, and I told him stories about life before the world decided to shut out the sun.

Seconds into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. Days into nights. That’s how we stayed. Huddled together in a cocoon of undeniable madness. Tuning into the chirps of crickets and flocking ravens. Shivering in the hands of rainstorms. I like to believe that if we were the only ones there, we would have stayed that way for eternity.

And then there was a silence, a tremor, a finale. Something unknown, something like a crevasse. We held on tight to each other, and faded into the ground beneath our calloused, worn-out feet. The stars could finally breathe again, and humanity would be restored without us all. Bright, and flooded with the tears of weeping angels.