[wdfifteen]

I came up against the deadline and had to write something in 20 minutes. This is what came out:

A few weeks ago I took a route home that led me down a narrow, meandering road. It’s not my usual route and it takes me a few miles out of my way, but sometimes I like to slow down and just look around when I drive and you can’t do that on a busy road. I came across an old barn with a fence out front that had a crude sign tacked to it that said, “STRAW.”

I’d seen it a hundred times but it so happened that I needed some straw, so I turned into the driveway, assuming the sign was telling me there was straw for sale in that barn. I was taking a chance here. That dilapidated board could be the remains of an old sign that had said “STRAW for sale,” or it could just as easily have once said “STRAW BERRIES,” or “No STRAW for sale here don’t ask go away.” But it just said STRAW, which left all possibilities open.

I got out of the truck and walked out of the sunlight into the barn and stepped 50 years back in time. That barn looked and smelled exactly like the barn on my grandfather’s farm. It was a quiet as a church. Streams of sunlight knifing through cracks in the siding illuminated the dusty hand-hewn beams that supported the hayloft. Burlap bags of feed sat on the floor and empty bags were slung over a wire strung between two beams. A few chickens scratched at the floor and a cat lounged on a sack of feed. The barn had the mellow scent of uncrowded, unhurried animals and the hay and grain stored for them for winter. My grandfather had half a dozen Jersey cows that wandered in and out of the lower level of his barn, which added their own distinct smell. It was a warm, mellow aroma completely unlike the sharp smell of animals kept in confinement and this barn still had that aroma. There had been cows here once.
The grainery was built against the north wall. It was a couple of small rooms with walls made of smooth, tight boards that contrasted sharply with the crude structural beams and rough siding. In my grandfather’s barn the grainery had held oats.
My grandfather would have put a sign on his fence that said STRAW. He liked to visit and too much written information discourages conversation. A cryptic sign left all possibilities open and invited the curious to stop and get the rest of the story. “You got straw to sell?” “Yep, oat straw from last year. It was a pretty good year, not too much rain right at harvest you know…” and off they would go on conversations about farming and weather and happenings at the church.
I noticed there were no oil stains on the floor of this barn. My grandfather’s barn had never had a tractor or gas engine or electricity in it, so the acrid smell of gasoline and oil had never mixed with the soft aroma of animals and grain and hay.

A figure wearing a white shirt and bib overalls appeared in the doorway.
“You got straw to sell?”

An hour later I stepped out of the barn into the bright May sun to the hammering sound of a diesel and the sharp smells of asphalt, crushed limestone, oil, and gasoline. They are so much of my life so much of the time that I barely noticed them before. The radio in the truck blasted an advertisement at me that ended with a man spitting out details so fast I could not have followed it if I cared to. These days every surface and every sound are grasped as opportunities to sell something. Life is sharp and fast and loud in 2013 and I long for my grandfather’s quieter, softer life.