Tobacco Barns

 

So they found themselves in a summer...an unusually warm one in the Surry County seat and the weathermen and women had been predicting storms throughout the week.  But as they walked along the roadside of 626, holding bottled waters condensating from the humidity there wasn't a cloud in sight.

Ahead, in an acreage there was a red shaped barn...an old tobacco one, flimsy, but still standing.  

Let's go explore he said...and they pivoted their path and slowly started the angle towards the barn.

They approached it, looming red and contrasting against the blue background...it was slightly raised, like it was being readied for transport vs dying on this grassy beaten-down turn.  It looked like it was going on a trip...against its own wishes.

They pushed open the creaking door and went in, the humidity cloying, like a fishbowl...slivers of daylight strewn down in sleeves...but it smelled of old wood...and perhaps old tobacco if you closed your eyes.

The colors in the barn were collecting...yellows from the tannins of the sun, dark shadows in the corners of 100 years of wood, the beaten down hay was gone from a color to a blend of whites and darks...the red paint from outside was just barely perceptible inside.  

She was wearing a black shirt and jeans and the dust was in orbit around her, pushed from their feet, in colloidal suspension hovering in the sleeves of light shining through the slats in the roof.

it was like stepping back into 1860...or sometime around then...with the hurrying of people and bright-leaf tobacco...stringing it up into the rafters, opening the windows to dry out the leaves...

In his mind he felt the weather...the outside.  The accumulating humidity and the pouncing of storms.  Here in the old barn the mood changed...the sleeves of light dissipated...shadows gathered from the corners and now joined hands to fill the room.

He had never smoked...but he loved the images, the demure way women did.  The way they held the cigarette, the way their mouth slightly opened to put it gently between their lips, the slight purse as they inhaled...maybe the way they pushed them to the side as they gently blew the smoke away...and the warmth of their mouth if he happened to kiss them during or after smoking...

What are you thinking about? She was staring at him, backlit against the barn...not an accusatory tone but more of a "hey, pay attention" one.

I was imagining you smoking.

Me?

Yeah.

Okay...she knelt down to tie her shoelace as it had unraveled...why would you do that?

Can't you smell it?  Can't you smell the old tobacco?

She stood up and turned around...maybe?  

He moved closer to her...took her arm and guided her closer to the wall.  Some of the tobacco poles where they hung the leaves were leaning against it...smell one of those poles.

She moved closer and put her nose against the wood.  Mmmmm...that's delicious.

He joined her, enjoying the musk of wood and old tobacco and summer.

I think I'd very much enjoy watching you smoke, he said.

She pulled back a little...really?  Why?

He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, moving slightly towards the door...a breeze had picked up and inside the barn it was suddenly stale and hot...he could feel the light wind coming through the door.

It's hard to explain...you just make certain things...better.  Sexier.

She let out her low laugh.  You're weird.

He nodded...they let their hands touch briefly and then connect and held them as they walked back to his car...

Let's go buy some cigarettes...I know this gas station.