Pitchforkin' Away

Summer, 2012

I stood in the cool mid-morning breeze and looked at the labryinthine barn, pitchfork in hand. It was a series of sheds connected by other sheds, decades' worth of add-ons and additions. Who knew how far back it went, it was hard to tell. What I did know was that there was a large flock of goats who made their abode there, as well as an impressive amount of manure; and, as you may have guessed, that's why I was there. Upon entering, I discovered the extent of the need to get the manure mucked out: in some places it was a mere six inches deep, in others, a foot. I was getting paid by the job, which meant the quicker I got it done, the quicker I could get out of there, so I set to. It didn't smell too bad at first, but once you got all that straw mixed with months of goat urine and droppings thrown around a bit, the dust became oppressive and the smell repugnant. My trusty wheelbarrow didn't fail me though, and together we moved load after load to the large trailer hooked up to the tractor out front.

After a good while I made it to the largest area of the shed compilation. Besides an astounding amount of muck, this one particular stall also had a very oddly placed metal beam, about an eighth inch wide, connected the ceiling to the base of one of the walls. I wondered why in the world they decided to build it that way, but since the whole shed-upon-shed thing was already weird enough, I didn't think too much about this strange metal beam and set to work. I avoided the beam the whole time, which kind of got annoying since it cut straight through the stall and made it somewhat awkward to maneuver around, but hey, what could I do. After that I moved on to the next stall, and then the next and the next. Finally, some time later, as I was taking out another wheelbarrow load, I noticed something fishy: the metal beam wasn't in the same place, it had moved slightly! I set the wheelbarrow done and moved in for a closer inspection. I got real close to the beam and looked at it intently.... hmm. I positioned my hand to grab the beam, then brought it in to take hold of it.. except... MY HAND WENT STRAIGHT THROUGH THE LITTLE METAL BEAM!! I had no idea what had just happened, I was totally shocked. I passed my hand effortlessly through it time and again, completely consumed in awe. And then, it struck me. I looked up and sure enough, there was a little hole in the tin roof, and the little metal beam was actually just sunlight. The air was so dusty that the bright sunlight on the obscenely high concentration of dust particles made it appear to be a solid physical object!

Some time later I had finally filled up that huge trailer and gotten every scrap of manure out of the shed-barn-conglomeration. All that was left to do was drive the tractor over to the dumping spot and offload it all; I was almost done! Not only that, but I was in fresh air again and didn't have to struggle to breath anymore. That, along with the fact of being almost done, urged me on to greater things and I started forking out the manure faster than I'd ever gone before. This hastiness may have been the main contributor to my demise. All at once I made a simple mistake: I tried to scoop up some manure that, unfortunately, my foot was under. I felt an odd feeling in my left foot, at the same time as my pitchfork came to an abrupt stop. My smile fell. I slowly looked down at my left foot. One of the forks had gone straight through my leather boot, in one side and clean out the other. And it wasn't just through the a little bit of it either: it entered near the middle of my foot area and exited at an angle toward my toe. AND I DIDN'T FEEL A THING. I gulped. My foot was probably so messed up that my pain registers had shut down to help me not go into shock or something. I winced, then tried to wiggle my toes... then my whole foot.. it felt great! I breathed a huge sigh of relief as a nervous laugh echoed ominously, resonating from.. well, myself I guess. I gave the pitchfork a solid tug, and yanked it out of my boot. There was no blood, and then I really believed my foot was fine. I continued working after that, but slower this time. I immediately decided to say not a word of this to anyone for at least three or five years. And I didn't. Not a word. Sometimes it's better for stories of danger and near-misses to age a little bit before one tells one's mother, for the safety and sanity of all.