10 - In Pierce's barn.
joneworlds@mailbox.org

I  saw  something upsetting  yesterday,  something
that I can't tell the meaning of yet.

To get  a little  grocery money or  whatever, Pete
and I sometimes go out to the farms in Boyner down
on the south slope by  the river. There's a couple
of old  guys and gals  out there we know  who were
friends of Pete's  dad, and they are  fine to hire
us  for a  day to  do some  chores and  stuff like
that. It costs us some gas to get out there unless
we  can hitch  rides, but  overall it's  usually a
pretty good deal for us,  whether they pay us with
money or food.

Anyways,  the other  day we  were out  at old  Jim
Pierce's place, and he wants  us to haul away some
junk from  inside this  ancient fall-down  barn on
the older  part of  his property.  He  hasn't even
been in there for years,  he says, but he wants to
start using it again and  so we've got to empty it
out so he can start fixing it up. So Pete goes off
to bring  around our truck with  Pierce's trailer,
and I go to open the padlock on the barn door, but
it's already broken open. That's not so good. With
a bit  of dread, I  swing open the door  enough to
have a look around.   I shine my flashlight around
for a bit, and I nearly drop it in shock at what I
see.

Standing in the lofts, the stalls, and about every
corner of that building, must be about two hundred
or more  gnomes. They are all  just standing there
facing me, hands at their  sides and staring at me
with  dead-looking  glassy  eyes, like  they  were
garden  gnomes  or  something.  Somehow  unhealthy
looking. Maybe smaller than other gnomes I've seen
around these parts?

"What  are you  all doing  in here?"  I ask,  even
though I know we can't understand each other.

Not a one moves. Maybe a few of them blink.

"Are you all... okay?"

Nothing. I back away and close the door.

We go back to the yard by the shop and tell Pierce
that Pete's  having seizures again, and  so we had
better get him home right away, and we're sorry we
can't get this job done today. He understands, you
boys take  care now,  okay? We  mask up  and drive
home.

I usually  think of the  Olds as thriving  in this
world, or  at least  on their  way to  that, maybe
even to do  good bit better than we  ever did. Not
what I  saw today. That  was more than  poverty, I
think. I don't know what that was. Did Pierce have
any idea? Something is wrong.