An old wheelbarrow lay overturned
beside a dilapidated shed. It was rusted; the tire was flat; the
handles had been broken into splinters. Imagine everything it had
experienced, and imagine what it could tell you if it remembered.
Its early life began in the fiery womb
of a foundry, where its steel body took shape. Soon, it was
assembled, given arms and legs and a wheel, its namesake mechanism.
Afterward, it was shipped to a store, where it waited amongst the
lawn mowers and shovels, the leaf blowers and the weed-whackers.
Eventually, though, came the wheelbarrow's day to take its leave of
the store.
Its wheel turned and squeaked
delightedly out into the sunlight, which reflected off its brilliant
metallic surface. A pair of hands pushed it towards a vehicle with
four wheels. (Four! How could it be possible?) In a brief moment of
confusion, the wheelbarrow floated on two pairs of hands, suspended
above the ground. It quickly, but gently, came to rest in the belly
of the four-wheeled machine, which clicked and thudded and shrieked
into a roar that mellowed into a steady purr.
And for a short while, the wheelbarrow
waited again.
It hit the driveway with a
wince-inducing clang. The
humble, one-wheeled cart landed upside-down in its new owner's
careless attempt to extract it from his truck with only one hand. The
edge of the wheelbarrow's metal basin gained a scratch – it's first
sign of use. A pair of hands awkwardly righted the gardening
instrument and pushed it back to a shed where it waited a few days
more.
Rain came and rain
went, and the soil was left soft and damp. Squishy footsteps
approached and gave way to a new set of hands that firmly took hold
of the wheelbarrow's handles. The hands guided it to a small mulchy
patch of earth. A few ceramic pots thudded gently into the
wheelbarrow's stiff and open embrace while the plants that they
contained stirred restlessly in the breeze.
A great weight
bore down on the wheel and support rods, but the single-wheeled cart
held together sturdily. With a grunt, the hands returned to the
handles and guided the cart off through mud, grass, and shallow
puddles to another nondescript patch of ground. The pots went as
quickly as they came, but the wet grass and soil clung stubbornly to
the wheelbarrow's singular rubber tire.
A sigh was heard,
and footsteps carried the hands off, leaving the wheelbarrow alone by
a newly-planted flowerbed.
Days and nights
passed, filled with either thankless work or excruciating boredom
from having nothing to do. The wheelbarrow was shuttled about as a
ferry for flowerpots or a barge for birdseed bags. Some days it
rested in the shed, others in whatever corner of the yard it had been
left in.
But a new day
came. A small pair of feet came plodding into the yard, followed by a
figure of much greater stature. “Can I ride in it?” chirped a
voice. No voice replied, but a weight and a warmth suddenly came to
rest in the wheelbarrow. A shriek of delight echoed.
Then the cart's
wheel began to turn. At first it groaned, but soon seemed to squeak
with delight. The child and her chariot raced around the yard,
dodging stumps and flattening weeds. Though the chariot's wheel began
to slow, and reluctantly halted when its legs were lowered to the
soil again.
The hands that
pushed the wheelbarrow had grown tired. The little charioteer,
although disappointed, waved a warm goodbye to her shining,
one-wheeled chariot.
This is perhaps
one of the many things that the wheelbarrow would tell you, if it
could remember.
