Klara and the Sun

Once alone, I began to place my thoughts fully on the task before me. It occurred to me that if a passer-by had stood directly before the barn even five minutes earlier, they would have been able to see not only the evening sky through the rear, and the continuation of the field, but also a lot more of the barn’s shadowy interior. But now, with the Sun’s rays coming straight towards me, I could make out only some blurred box-like shapes stacked one on top of the other. And the thought returned to me with more certainty than ever that, even accounting for the Sun’s great generosity, what I was about to do carried risk, and would require all my concentration. I heard behind me the breeze in the grass and the cries of distant birds, and ordering my thoughts, I walked across the cut grass towards Mr McBain’s barn.

***

The interior was filled with orange light. There were particles of hay drifting in the air like evening insects, and his patterns were falling all across the barn’s wooden floor. When I glanced behind me my own shadow looked like a tall thin tree ready to break in the wind.

There were some curious features about my surroundings. On first entering the barn, I’d encountered such sharply contrasting divisions of brightness and shadow that my sight had taken a few moments to adjust. Nevertheless, I’d established quickly that the blocks of hay, whose shapes I’d noted from outside, were now to my left, stacked one on top of the other to form a kind of platform — one as tall as my shoulders — upon which passers-by could climb or even lie down and rest. But the hay blocks had been stacked so as to allow a gap between them and the wall behind — perhaps so that Mr McBain could gain access from that side. Peering over the hay platform, I now saw, fixed to this wall and running all along it, the Red Shelves from our store, complete with the ceramic coffee cups displayed upside down and in a line.

On my other side — to my right — where the shadows were at their deepest, I saw a section of wall almost identical to the front alcove. In fact I felt sure that if I went over to it, I’d discover amidst the shadows an AF standing there proudly at the spot where — no matter what else was said — customers were most likely to look first.

Also on my right, though not as far over as the alcove, was the only item in the barn that could be counted as furniture: a small metal foldaway chair, now in its open position, at present bisected by a diagonal separating its brightly lit area from its shadowy one. This chair too was reminiscent of the chairs Manager kept in the back room and occasionally unfolded in the store, except that its paint had started to flake, revealing patches of metal underneath.

I decided, after some reflection, that it wouldn’t be discourteous to sit down on this chair while waiting for the Sun. When I did so, I fully expected to see a revised picture of my surroundings due to the altered angle, but was surprised to find that everything had instead become partitioned — and not just into the usual boxes, but into segments of irregular shape. Inside some segments I could see certain parts of Mr McBain’s farming tools — a spade handle, the lower half of a metal ladder. In another segment was what I knew to be the mouths of two plastic buckets placed side by side, but owing perhaps to the difficult light conditions, they were presented simply as two intersecting ovals.

I knew the Sun was now very near me, and although I thought at times I should stand up, as when receiving a customer, something else suggested I would steal less privacy — and be less likely to cause annoyance — if I remained seated. So I aligned my own shape as closely as I could with that of the foldaway chair and waited. The Sun’s shafts became more pronounced, and more orange, and I even thought these shafts might be causing pieces of hay to come loose from their blocks and float into the air, for there were now many more drifting particles in front of me.

Then the thought came to me that if I was correct, and the Sun was now passing through Mr McBain’s barn on his way to his real resting place, I couldn’t afford to be overly polite. I’d have to seize my chance boldly, or all my efforts — and Rick’s help — would come to nothing. So I gathered my thoughts and began to speak. I didn’t actually say the words out loud, for I knew the Sun had no need of words as such. But I wished to be as clear as possible, so I formed the words, or something close to them, quickly and quietly in my mind.

‘Please make Josie better. Just as you did Beggar Man.’

I raised my head a little and saw, alongside the fragments of farming tools and blocks of hay, a section of a traffic signal, and part of the wing from one of Rick’s drone birds, and I remembered Manager’s voice saying, ‘That’s not going to be possible,’ and Boy AF Rex saying, ‘You’re so selfish, Klara.’ And I said:

‘But Josie’s still a child and she’s done nothing unkind.’