The Collection: Short Stories, Misfits, and One-shots

The Letter

This was another assignment, but the direction it took, along with the weight of the letter itself made me think of Saving Private Ryan.  A sad direction for Saturday, but I promise it's good.  

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She opened the barn door slowly, letting its hinges creak in the void of sound. It now laid wide open, but she hesitated, wondering if work was worth what little energy she had left. The letter still burned a hole in her pocket, its contents read, but its information failing to sink in.

From where she stood, dozens of eyes latched onto her tiny, broken form. The horses that usually knocked loudly on their stall doors and the cows that incessantly mooed said nothing. Instead, they simply watched her, a sense of pity wafting off their unflinching stares. But why should she need their pity? She had lost nothing. The letter was wrong; sent to the wrong home, sent to the wrong mother. There were dozens of farms in the area, all nearly identical to the eyes of an outsider. She nodded to herself, accepting her own reply even as the facts swirled in her mind.

Absently, she patted the pocket and picked up one of the dusty pails, filling it with food, the hard pellets clanking against its metal innards. The sound, something she had rather grown deaf to, rang in her ears, replaced with a much deadlier and unfamiliar sound. With a clang, she dropped the pail, letting the pellets hit the hay covered floor, her hand falling to her heart. She was losing it, she realized as tears rolled down her face, uncontrollable and unbidden. Why should she cry? It wasn't true, couldn't be. As another sob racked her body, she relented and pulled out the seemingly innocent letter, smoothing out its crumpled edges.

 For a long moment, she stared at the army's emblem, which had been marked clearly, where the sender's address should have gone. A jagged sob forced her to slide the letter out, her hands shaking with every movement. When the piece of paper was fully opened, she glanced over the first line, catching the words that had made her like this. 

 There was the usual bit addressed directly to her, Mrs. Donaldson, and then came the sentence that she still couldn't grasp; 'Please accept my deepest sympathy on the death of your son, Pvt. Nicholas Donaldson'. She never made it past that line, the hand clutching the letter shaking before she flung the letter into the pile of pellets where it rested, collecting dirt.

Trying to get ahold of herself, she stared out into the further off parts of the barn, noting the worn wood, and hastily patched surfaces, all a reflection of how she felt. How easily could this whole structure collapse? All it would take was a slight push on one of the weakened supports and just like that, her life's work would be taken from her, just like her son. She had lost everything, so what was a barn to her?

She took a deep breath to gather herself, and sat down in the mess she had made, scraping up the fallen pellets and tossing them back into the pail. Her tantrum must have knocked the animals out of their reverie as some of them demanded for their food, forgetting pity altogether, if she had not imagined it from the start. She set the pail aside and stooped to grab the letter, only pausing to take in how much she had ruined it. At least she couldn't chase a scrap of paper away, people were so much harder to keep; so much more emotional. 

 The letter, while it had managed to fall in the scattered food, was still very close to the crisp whiteness it had been when she had received it. The army men tasked with giving her the letter had tried to explain it to her, but as soon as they opened their mouths, she had escaped to the barn; the closest building at the time, never mind its frail bones, and failing determination. She hadn't had time to think of that when escape was more important. The men hadn't followed either, simply letting her walk away, their eyes saying what she wouldn't allow them. It was too bad that the barn was full of the memories that the letter dredged up within her, clashing with her frightening imagination. Not even a structure could be harmless when there was this kind of pain.