The Sunny Shed (A short story)

A Short Story

       The sun shined brightly over the rolling hills. It's rays dance on my skin. There was a slight cool breeze that tugs at my already messy hair. I tried my best to keep my dark hair tame and in its place, but it was like it had a mind of its own. I look up from the bottom of the hill at my gloomy home that sat on top. It had a dirt rod leading up to the front door. A fence was placed to keep the dog in. Not that it matters now. He is no longer with us. It looked like utter depression but in the form of a house.
If I were any normal person I would try to escape but the truth is I'm needed here. My family depends on me to do my part when they remember I exist. My brothers, i have three, would tend the barren fields while I helped my mother with the tasks inside the house. My father does nothing but sleep, eat, drink, and sleep again. He had told us that he did enough work getting us here so it was the least we could do to carry our own wait. "Work.." he'd say, "...builds character."
My family struggles to make a living in this dead wasteland we call home. It would be no use to travel to the far corners of the world in search of better soil. But my eldest brother insits and he had made plams to leave. It's like this where ever you step though. We cannot sway his mind. And I fear I will never see him again.
Whenever I finish my work, my only escape from seeing the dull walls of the house was to get lost in a book in the fields. I found it in the attic when I was searching for a new broom. The sunflower on the cover caught my eye and I immediately felt a connection with the book when I read the first sentence. From there there was no stopping me from my passion or you could say my obsession.
The book did not credit an author and it looked fairly peculiar. Though this did not stop me from throwing away the only entertainment I had. It's called 'The Sunny Shed'.
The story starts by introducing a young girl who was often forgotten by her family often invisible.
       There was a time of famine where she lived and good soil was hard to come by. Her families crops usually shriveled before it was ready to harvest. Time passes and her and her family are starving. Anything sounds good....even their dog. Her brother became deathly ill. She had three brothers. One night she went to the shed to get some extra pillows to make him comfortable on his death bed. When she reached the shed though she suddenly collapsed. She was unable to move. She did not have enough energy even to cry for help.
       No one had come for her. She starved and died alone in the shed. No one had noticed that a girl had died right under their noses. Her body lay untouched. Her brother died and her drunky father did too soon after. Her other brother left to find a better life in search of work and food. They would never see him again. And the last brother deemed it too much and took his own life. The mother was the only one left. They all had a proper beareale unlike the dead girl in the shed. A small time passed before mother too became ill. There was no one to take care of her and with no one around she had to work the fields herself. She went to the shed in search if some tools. The very shed where her daughter lay undisturbed. That is when she noticed a patch of healthy sunflowers growing in a clump. When the mother got closer she was horrified by the seen. There lay her daughter now a corpse and hardly reconizable, but she knew. The woman wept for her daughter calling her name and crying apologies. "Sunny, my poor sunny." Soon she became too weak to move and when she she'd her final tear she layer her head down next to her daughter's decaying head. She lay in dark fertile spoil wispering her last words of love to her daughter before she used her last breath.
       It may have been an inappropriate story for a proper lady but I could not shake the feeling that the book was meant for me. No one else would understand the deep connection I felt for it either. I would even imagine sunflowers surrounding my own shed.
      I closed my eyes dreaming of the beauty that could be restored to this world. I sighed and my breath seemed to carry out in the breeze. I hear a sound coming from outside my dream so I open my eyes. My mother was calling me to hurry back. I sat upright. I tried to fix my hair but decided it was no use. "Sunny!" I hear my mother call again so I stop fussing over my appearance and race to my dull house once again.