Internal Monologue – The Barn

She opened one eye and looked out sideways at the meadow. The cool earth cradled her, cheek and ear growing cold and numb. The moist grass slowly soaked her shirt and pants.

She could feel the skin on the other side of her face upturned to the sky getting warm from the hot summer sun beating on her.

One side cold, one side warm. She could be sliced down the middle and be two separate people, yet own the same identity.

Slowly she opened her other eye, and looked out to where the first had been groggily gazing. Her vision, blurry, cleared, and the outline of the barn came into view.

Off in the distance, and slightly blocked by tall grass, she could make out the stooping peak of its shingle roof, the lightning rods leaning one way or the other, like a horse who has just shook its head and sent its mane all disheveled to either side of its long neck. She searched for the sloping ramp up to the loft doors.

She needed to make sure the doors were still there.

The baler twine holding the two sides together strained with the small breeze that was rocking them back and forth. She could see where it had left a circular mark on the wood from the years of being a makeshift door clasp, rubbing as the breeze rattled at the doors, trying to open and batter them about.

She remembered putting the baler twine back into place, and then tugging at the knot to make sure it was tight. She could almost feel the sting on her hands from the loose threads, as she had pulled so hard to make sure it wouldn’t suddenly break.

She wanted those doors to stay shut.

She knew that even if the doors were to open, and the inside of the barn was to be shown to the world, it wouldn’t matter. She was the only one who would be able to see what no one should. In her head, she would see it forever, but there would be no lingering aura, no clue, in the barn.

It would never even register to anyone else that something like this could happen there.

She blinked, and sat up. Her hands, rubbing each other almost involuntarily, shook slightly as she began to remember, and stared and at the gray board and batten sides of the barn.

She could still smell it. Horrible, hot, putrid. It was as if the breeze was carrying it her way, to remind her not to forget, to haunt her with the stench that had made her gag.

She didn’t want to remember.

She could almost taste the minerals; taste the stickiness in her mouth. She realized that she had bitten her lower lip, as she was staring back at the barn. The blood filled her mouth and as she sucked on the new wound, she wondered if truly that was what it would have tasted like.

She began to remember the low grunts, chanting, and frenzied incantations. All the soft sounds of barn and nature mixed together, marred by the loud anger of what was happening.

Naiveté robbed in a single moment.

She could almost hear the sound of metal on metal, that tinging noise that sets your teeth on edge, but sounds so clean. She looked around quickly; as if someone would pop out of nowhere, the sound was so clear in her head.

She shuddered and lowered her eyes from the barn.

Her knees found their way to her chest and her arms found their way around them, holding them close, searching for some sort of solace from her newly burned memory. Try as she could, she couldn’t stop the shaking that was now taking over not just her hands, but her whole body.

She felt like she was going to fly apart, to tear into pieces.

She wanted to get up, to leave, but for some reason, she was rooted in place, sitting in the meadow. She wanted to rise, run, scream madly all the way to somewhere safe.

Somewhere where she could be wholly dry, wholly warm.

Somewhere where she could sew her tattered mind back together, mend the rift that had started in her from the moment she had hidden and watched as her beliefs were forever altered.

But, part of her wanted to stay right where she was, for if she moved she would have to go on living with the memory of what she had seen. If she stayed where she was, on the grass, in the meadow, by the barn, she wouldn’t have to get up, wouldn’t have to find the strength to pull herself together.

She could just stay there, silent and still. Arms wrapped around her knees, head hidden.

Then she wouldn’t break, and she could still the memory in her head.

Dear Reader:

This was a writing exercise where I was to describe a trauma from inside someones head, without describing what the trauma was. More implied situation stuff. Please let me know what you think the situation is, I would love to know if I made it clear enough!

Thank you for reading.

Cardeia