Driving from Kerrville through Fredericksburg (to Austin, for work yesterday), there’s a shed that’s fallen in on itself on the south side of Friendship Lane, about a hundred yards shy of the First Baptist Church, followed by the Walmart, both on the left.

The shed looks like a sleeping drunk grandfather on a late Saturday morning: his A-shaped tin roof, rusted auburn, hinting at a once-glorious head of hair; his siding, like teeth, missing every other slat, letting the horizontal 2×4″ beams show; and a rusted metal mesh across the front that reminds me of a bathrobe whose sash has come loose and exposed yellowing boxers and thinning legs.

Yet with its all its weakness, this barn now belongs right there, at that roadside settled within a brief stand of trees that serves as an old leather armchair. It’s bothering no one and, obviously, no one’s bothered it for some time. It’s been ignored to “sleep it off.” It would seem almost wrong for a work crew to show up now and start dismantling the mesh, siding and roof.

He will return to his ancestors soon enough.

Peacefully.

There is a realtor’s sign not fifteen feet to the left, however.

An unwelcome alarm clock.