Deadfall

Last weekend I was in Lancaster, PA for the Pennwriters Annual Conference and this little tale won 3rd place in the fiction category of the "On the Wall" one-page writing contest.

DEADFALL

Dust motes drifted in the sunrise that streamed through the open granary door. The fragrance of last night’s rain clung to the grass outside and merged with the musty odor of stale oats. She stepped through the doorway, stirring the particles into swirling galaxies. Beyond the small square of light, the granary was a shadowy skeleton, its rough-hewn ribs reaching into the dark. The raucous morning symphony of birds filtered through the walls, punctuated by a faint, rhythmic creaking emanating from the rafters above.

The bare light bulbs that normally illuminated the granary burned out last week – the latest manifestation of decay on the farm. She couldn’t recall when it began, but it blanketed their lives like a funeral shroud. The failed crops, the broken tractor, the diseased livestock, the roof leak, the dry well, the children… She didn’t understand why, she only knew that he was to blame. 

This was the land his family claimed nearly three centuries ago. Generations labored over it, but never tamed it because it wasn’t theirs. 

This was the house his great grandfather had built on the land. It was the seventh house to stand here after the first six were consumed by fire and beaten by storms.

They were his children. She found them on a blanket beneath the dead oak. Their still forms pinned under the deadfall. They were her children, too.

Now here she was. She took the rusty hatchet from its hook on the granary wall, then climbed the ladder, barely noticing the broken rung. The loft was barren except for the daggers of light that pierced the dilapidated roof. 

And there he was.

She could just reach the beam where he tied the rope. It took several swings of the hatchet to cut through the one thing on the farm new enough that it hadn’t yet succumbed to the decay. The birdsong outside didn’t pause at the forceful thud.

Dust motes drifted in the sunrise that streamed through the open granary door.