Retroreflectors and elevator springs.

One day I was sent to fetch something in an old barn whose age is unknown. As I slid open the big red doors, red eyes start to open, red dots start to appear, curious as to what is disturbing the peace. It must be retro reflectors on the rear end of some sort of vehicles I decide, as any other explanation that comes to mind is highly repellent. I take a deep breath and step into the dusty, old darkness. I’ve taken a few steps inside before the angst start to seep in. The feeling is as though I slip into a dark pool that have gone undisturbed for the better part of the century, and now engulf me like starved quicksand. No questions asked, just step inside and fill the almost tangible loneliness in the air. It feels like something, maybe the building itself or whatever inhabits it, is zooming in on me, watching me. Like an old-folks-home where no one had visited for the longest time and the residents swarm around to check out the exciting outsider. Sometimes people come to the door, or even step inside, but no one goes to the back unless they have a good reason for it.

I can’t remember where the light switch is so I’ll just have to navigate through the darkness by the help of the scarce light that somehow makes it through the old structure. I can feel the atmosphere growing around me as I take in the gloomy landscape that is still growing and expanding as my eyes slowly adjust to the dim light. My panicky response is to make it even vaster by supplying every scene from every horror movie I’ve ever watched, just to maximize the experience.

Eventually, between the seemingly random collections of funny things, I arrive at the spot where the lawn mower in question is situated. It looks weathered and worn, but under the overwhelming amounts of dust and dry grass, it looks as though it’s itching, dying to get out of here, out of its idle boredom in this drop box for inadequate things. It still works and thus feels very strongly that it has been misplaced. It was almost calling for me in the silence where it might be doomed to stay for the rest of its life. Had it been able, it would have spun its little wheals and let me know with, ample enthusiasm, that it was the one under the table. I grab the other one, the one that is long gone and has no will to move, to work, and nothing against grass really. In its old days it has retired and settled in a nice spot by the snowblower and a massive set of springs that looks like it belongs at the bottom of an elevator shaft. It is slightly shocked and awfully offended by the abrupt change in plans with no opportunity for formal complaint. This can be felt in the resistance it puts up as the wheals start to move very slowly and I start to wonder what my boss is thinking. But I have more pull in me than the retired apparatus has resistance. It comes along, creaking and complaining loudly. I didn’t see the other one, almost bouncing in frustration under the table. “Why won’t anyone try me?” it wonders at the moment when it would have produced a few tears (or a few drops of oil) in great harmony and tune with some depressing music had this been a Hollywood movie.