The Origin of Roh-Shan

Barn

By the time Roh-Shan had finished washing all the dishes, the sun was already half-set, leaving the entire town washed in golden hour. Roh speed-walked her way through well-worn backroads that led to the large barn many of the other sixteen-year-olds worked at. For a while she'd thought it would be fun to get a job with her friends, but soon realized she wasn't cut out for the physical work and strict conditions when she could instead work at the family business from home. Still, sometimes forking and packaging straw all day sounded better than changing fourteen soiled nappies.

Thankfully, she knew at this hour the afternoon-shift manager was in charge, and he was much more relaxed than the drill-instructor-wannabe morning manager. This one, Mani, usually let Roh wait in the loft for her friends to finish work.

As she approached the barn, she saw workers slowly filing out. She was just in time for the end of the workday.

Trying to get in the small door while everyone wanted out was like swimming upstream, but eventually she found an opening and slipped through. She rounded the corner from the mudroom into the main barn, and nearly ran into Mani.

"Oh! Sorry!"

"They're up there." He grunted. "Just close the door behind you when you leave. It'll lock."

He wasn't exactly a nice manager, just not a mean one. Rather, indifferent.

She climbed the ladder to the highest hay loft, four stories up. She spotted her friends in the corner, where she knew they'd be, and ducked to avoid the slanted roof as she made her way over. The golden sunlight peeking through the cracks illuminated every dust speck floating through the air, and left a beam of light on the straw-covered wood panels

"Roh!" Kota called, sounding like she had something in her mouth.

"Look who's back, Roh-Shan. I could smell ya coming." Paulo greeted, which earned him a punch in the shoulder from Ashoka. Kota was chewing the end of a green bean.

Roh took in the sight that shouldn't make her jealous but always did. The three of them, reclined against loose bales of hay, dirt-smudged, boots-kicked-off and sweaty like they'd just been through the wringer together. They always looked like they'd earned the end of the day, whereas Roh usually just had a fresh spit-up stain to prove she'd done anything at all.

But she knew she'd never make it working here, and most people here would trade places with her in an instant.

"Get your ass over here." Kota swiped the spot next to her.

Roh climbed over and sat back, trying to fit in.

Paulo had been in the middle of a story, "So anyway, Buwei says "put your shit on, the boss wants us to bring in the deliveries", and me and Qian get our muck boots and shit on, right? Soon as we do, Buwei comes back and says nevermind, they got someone else to do it. We take our shit off. Then, he comes back, says the guys they got need help. We get our shit back on. We get to the door and Buwei again says they already got the deliveries. Right? So we wait a minute in case he changes his mind again,"

Paulo already had everyone holding in laughter just from his tone and facial expressions.

"So we wait one minute. Two. Five. Nothing. We finally take our shit off again. Guess what happens in minute-fucking-six?"

Kota interjected, "If Buwei had more than half a brain, I'd say he was purposely tryna fuck with you."

"But he doesn't, that's the sad thing!"

Everyone was laughing again.

"Maybe he's just been sipping a little too much of that bog juice." Ashoka added.