The MFA Diaries: The Photo Prompt

This week was an interesting class chock-full of old school professor style wisdom ("keep your words simple" and "use words that mean something" or my favorite, the statement that led to everything else I'm going to ramble about in this post, "treat your setting as a character in the story") and the following comment directed towards me by the man in charge after an unplanned in class writing prompt based on a photo the instructor had taken for a side-project:

"Man, that is some dark, dark stuff."

So what elicited this sort of response (and a few head nods from my fellow students) as I read the piece? Well it doesn't have a title, but here is the short (okay, it's really more of scene description)...

A few long steps from the hard blacktop of highway 70 rests an expanse of used earth. Rows of cornstalks; twisted, turned and broken litter any path that might lead to the few signs of life here. Two buildings, a barn and a shed, aged by rain, wind and sun; ripped at their seams by unkind weather set along with two seemingly out of place trees; both of which are barren, any semblance of spring absent from their limbs.

This place, this farm appears at rest. The harvest has come and gone, the soil waits for its next tilling, the next opportunity to create life amongst the desolation. But that will have to wait for another time, because for now this acreage, this dirt, sits resting quietly under gray spring skies.

(Note: The photo above is NOT the photo used for the prompt, but you have to admit it is still a pretty cool creepy barn picture.)