Written with my Thursday night group with the prompts:  discombobulated, rhinoceros, rising sun, in this photograph, 1968

In this photograph, Jack is playing guitar for the children at the weekly sing-along.  He’d been doing it for decades, ever since I’d started teaching kindergarten when we were newly-weds. We’d continued the tradition even after I’d retired.  It was fun for us, and for the children too.  See how they’re gathered round him, all smiling.  And here, in this shot, they look serene, each mouth a perfect round o as they sing with him.

Lately he’d been including a lot of the old folk songs we used to sing during our activist days—Blowing in the Wind, We Shall Overcome, We Shall Not Be Moved.  I didn’t see anything wrong with that.  He didn’t mean anything by it.  Maybe House of the Rising Sun was a bridge too far, I don’t know.  Some of the parents said I should have been monitoring his set list, as if the whole thing was my fault.  I just don’t know what to say to that.  What could they possibly mean?  Maybe I’m just naïve.  

My favorite part of the House of the Rising Sun is the line about the narrator’s mother sewing his new blue jeans.  That always took me right back to 1968, when my mother taught me to do a little cross stitch on samplers and pillows, but all the girls were embroidering daisies and butterflies on the back pockets and worn knees of our levis. That’s what I wanted to do but I wasn’t very good at it.  At the craft store, they had these patches you could buy, mostly roses and peace signs, but I was attracted to the Disney characters, Tinkerbell and Minnie Mouse.  Then I saw the Seven Dwarves—and I decided on Bashful, the least remembered Dwarf.  Admit it, you don’t remember him, do you?  But he became my good luck charm.  

I was wearing those jeans when I met Jack at the winter carnival.  Jack was an extrovert.  He liked the spotlight, and I liked him.  He kept me safe.

The special thing about this photo was that it was the last happy time.  The kids were on their feet, singing and swaying, and Jack’s voice was clear of all the congestion that’d been plaguing him since February.  He sounded good.  He had nearly finished the song, and was holding that last note for dramatic effect, when the rhinoceros stampede broke through the cafeteria door.  They came up through the back, hurtling over the stage where Jack sat a bit elevated above the children.  I like to think they were calmed by Jack’s fancy fret work, because they slowed down a bit, giving us time to pull the children off to the side, and under the tables. So you see, Jack was the only one they carried off.  None of the children were hurt, though I suppose it was a discombobulating thing to witness.  The kids wanted to run out after Jack and the herd, but Mrs. Hardy screamed louder than I’ve ever heard a principal scream, and the kids sat down, chattering and bobbing like ocean waves on the cafeteria floor.  I was stunned, stiff as a statue, staring at the spot where my husband had sat, his guitar looking abandoned on the edge of the stage.

At the community meeting later, more than one parent seemed to think Jack had summoned the rhinoceroses, as if he was some kind of a wizard who’d called them indoors with the protest songs.  Mrs. Hardy told them this was nonsense of course, but I was suddenly bashful again, more so than ever.  I refused to speak, and most people were sympathetic to my grief.  But I just didn’t want to give anything away.

Jack often told me he had an inkling he’d go suddenly.  That I should be prepared.  Well, I’d always handled the finances and the computer repairs, so I wasn’t too worried.  But this was nothing I could have anticipated.  

I set his guitar in his favorite chair in the den where he often played along with YouTube videos for practice.  Sometimes when I’m in the garden or down in the cellar, I swear I hear his strumming and his humming.  When I sneak up the back steps, as quiet as I can, and creep down the hallway, I’ll still hear the music low and persistent.  But when I peek into the room, there’s nobody and nothing, no sound, no music.  It’s okay.  I’m not worried.  

I kind of like being alone, especially in the evening when it’s quiet and dark.  But lately, I can’t help but wonder:  what flock, what herd, what murmuration, or murder will come for me?

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash