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Farm World​

I sit at the front of the green and yellow wagon. Creaking and clinking harness, the steady huff and thump, eight feathered horse feet sending up dust.

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The red corrugated iron hay shed, with dusty Victorian carriages, two black, one white. A little room in the corner with bird poo stained windows. Harness hangs from the walls, smelling of polish. We build forts with the hay bales- much better than sofa cushions. A thin strip of concrete foundation extends past the outer wall, littered with bird skeletons, white and delicate with huge eye sockets.

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The wool shed, every surface smooth and tacky with lanolin, patchy and black. The air thick with sheepy smells, a maze of stalls behind the stage. We use the shoots as a slide to the dusty pens outside.

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The wooden railings of the stables, perfect for climbing up. The stallion comes over to take an offered dock leaf.  I climb on, grabbing handfuls of dry stringy black mane. He’s too high up for me to jump down from, I wait for him to carry me back to the railing.

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A building with “Food” on the front, full of outdated fire engines. I’m not allowed to climb on them, but do, all the time. They stand with pride, red and white shine and knobs that used to do things. They are interesting and beautiful, much better than new fire engines, I will love them forever, because they deserve it.

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A building of cement brick and door frames one step too high up from the ground. A room stacked to the ceiling with sacks of chaff. Rats have got in, golden chips pour out. We climb to the top and ride the steady avalanche of dry feed back down. Ssshhhhhh.

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Mannequins stand behind glass in square rooms. A shop with fake yellow cheese under a glass cover and jars of not-real sweets, a bedroom with a wooden chair with a lid in the seat and a baby doll in a stiff white dress. A collection of antique telephones, rich, dark brown wood and brass. One has a black trumpet mounted to the front you talk into, and another on a cord that you lift to your ear, it has no buttons. I unplug, and re-plug the metal rods on the switch board.

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A terrifying deer head mounted above the door. Mum says its eyes are glass, I’m not sure it’s true. A room of things in boxes filling shelves on every wall, rat poo.

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A bridge, wooden planks and no sides, I must be careful to walk in the middle, so I don’t fall in and get eaten by the eel. We try to catch him in a white bucket on a rope, he comes and looks at it but doesn’t go inside. We have no bait.

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A ducks nest, unguarded. We steal an egg, my sister says we’re allowed. We roll it down the slide, toss it back and forth, and push it on the swing. When it breaks we play with the smooth orange yolk, it slides between my fingers, not like a soap bubble at all. My hands are sticky.

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The big gate, solid metal bars reaching to the sky. The buzz of a cicada. I climb and the sound gets louder, so loud it hurts. I climb forever, higher than ever before, too tired to go on, I’m at the top. A bright green creature with pointed legs perches on the railing, covered in shiny black lines. A screaming monster. I flee.

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The little paddock the ram lives in. He might be dangerous, I run across. The empty village with a jail cell, the blackest dark place I have ever been. Someone shuts me in- I don’t yet know to be afraid of the dark.

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A flight of stairs that lead nowhere, a white painted wall that doesn’t go all the way up. A space filled with polystyrene shapes. When I am older and cleverer I’ll be able to find something good to do with them.

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The inside of the aeroplane is tiny. The cock pit has dials but no levers or buttons. It is not interesting. We search for the peacock in a stand of pine trees, find him perched high up off the ground, a plastic six pack holder around his neck. Littering is dangerous.

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Long beautiful grass and thin hanging branches touch cold rushing water. It is the most green, alive, and lovely place I have ever been. I never go there again.

© 2025 by Erin J Doyle

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