Prompt Word: Shed
Minervie and Chip 49
Unlike Gungan’s attic room in a middle class neighborhood where the dunny was a tiny shed with no room for more than a throne and a water bucket, Edna’s farmstead had a well appointed wash building. There were four toilet rooms. They were still just pit latrines, but for some reason they didn’t stink. The toilets had well formed seats. The whole building had clean, whitewashed solid wood floor and the outer room had two hand-washing basins and these had faucets with actual hot water.
Gungan decided to wash his face in the wash basin and rinse out his mouth as best he could.
Curious, he opened a final door on the other side. That hid an even larger room with a bathtub, and a very large cast iron contraption that looked suspiciously like the engine of a steam train with no wheels.
He reminded himself that Edna was waiting, and he was exploring instead of going to face the conversation ahead.
Not long after Minervie had left, and he was glad, at least, that Edna gave him a tour of the important bits he’d need to know. Always embarrassing to have to ask a lady where the dunny is. Even if she may be (distant?) family.
Edna was sitting on the back porch next to an oil lantern, reading a thick book. At this Gungan realized, there are no mosquitos or even moths. He could hear bugs, but he’d not had to swat anything away since before he’d left the pale yellow Holden.
With a renewed reason for his feeling of things being wrong, he came across the well worn path between the out-building and Edna’s house. As he got nearer, Edna closed the book, got up with the lantern, and came off the porch.
“Follow me,” she said, walking towards the large house.
Gungan followed nervously. After a pause, “How’s it there’s no bugs?”
Edna said, “That’s the first thing you noticed that’s off? Are you actually ready to hear?”
They got to the door of the main house, and she opened it and invited him in. Forgetting the previous question, he was very confused. The whole big house was nothing but an empty shell. Three floors tall at the middle, with raw rafters holding up the roof. Bracing boards holding the walls in place, and the floor was dirt.
Edna started, “As Minnie said, this is my place. On paper, it is held by a business in London, and THAT is owned by me. On paper, I’m an employee who is a caretaker on this pine ranch. What I actually care for is the magical monsters who roam the West wood. Did you want to know about the bugs?”
He sat on the dirt against a central pillar, and nodded, “Yes, but go slow.”
Link to first post: https://wandering.shop/@vollink/115862593867698136