The Red Wheelbarrow
by Brianne Kohl
We'd been walking in the woods almost an hour, collecting branches and hauling them back to the fort site, when we came across the red metal wheelbarrow. It stood far off in a long, lined clearing, the tall pines shrouded overhead like pillars — thousands of them, shooting high. No one else was around although the wheelbarrow didn't seem old or forgotten. The red paint looked almost glossy and new, the front tire full of air and the metal base gleaming in the flagging rays of sunlight.
Sometime during the late afternoon, the woods had become a golden vastness, stretching wide — God Fingers wriggling down through the canopy. Our path was covered in leaves, crackling dead leaves beneath our mud-caked boots. I half-pretended someone was following us — I didn't mind getting caught up in a good chase game.