One Dark Night -- In The Middle Of A Dream

Imagine going out into the country, visiting a farm and doing all those country things. Walking down to the fields, feeding the pigs, even climbing up in the hayloft. At night everyone gathers around the piano and sings songs in a silly way and then the stories begin.

Not stories about great Aunt Martha, or the time little Sally Ann ran through the kitchen garden in the altogether, but stranger stories of what goes on in the back forty when no one is around. Stories told with a wink and a laugh, but whose teller keeps rubbing his thumb against his index finger and surreptitiously glancing toward the window in the corner.

In the morning everyone will be packing up to go back home. Everyone except Dan and Susan, they have decided to stay behind. Dan is the real last boy scout. Just out of college he still retains that boyish hope that there are things yet to be discovered in this world and Susan, a middle aged woman in her fifties, is looking for the last great adventure. They rise early and dress for the occasion.

This occasion means long canvas coveralls, tall boots, beekeeper's hats, sturdy white clothes meant for other things because there are no things meant for this. Three thirty in the morning barely looks like morning. It is dark and chilly out. The walk down the old tractor road is long and the clothes are heavy. Susan is having second thoughts, but calms herself by remembering that the story teller has seen it all before. Dan is thinking that this is all probably some set up at their expense.

The old metal gate swings open and they begin the last trek down to the decrepit old barn. A few milk cows still stand stone still in the fields around them. This is comforting to Susan. Dan barely gives their sturdy silhouettes any thought at all. Inside the barn things are different. Apparently they are not the only ones who came to see. Some other people linger near empty stalls and broken down pieces of the past. Susan wonders how they got there, but that thought is soon lost in the anticipation that begins to swallow her up as she checks her camera one last time.

The farmer arrives. He whispers something in a rough dialect to his son and they turn to the waiting people. Opening the trap door in the center of the barn, they begin their descent. One step at a time, six people hold onto the rickety wooden railings and peer into a black void broken only by the pale glow of the story teller's flashlight. No stories now. No words at all. Just the slow, almost silent shuffle of feet feeling their way along the dim, dusty trail that will slake their curiosity.

Thunder crashes over their heads and lightning lights up the square in the floor above them. Water drips through a crack somewhere and the boy stops, looks at his father and they turn around, motioning to the people on the steps to go back up, hurrying them along. No one complains. No one says a word. They are all just a bit relieved thinking that perhaps they didn't want to come on this adventure after all.

People mill about among the broken down stalls, removing their costumes and laughing nervously. Glancing at the trap door the farmer is carefully bolting and concealing under bales of musty old hay, one self righteously proclaims he has been had. The rest put away their cameras, feeling that sense of relief that comes when an ordeal is over. After all, no money was exchanged. There was nothing to be gained by these people who simply agreed to take them and let them see for themselves.

Susan motions towards the door and Dan follows her. Both of them are thinking of the story they have to tell.