SHE CAME BACK

She came back. There were rumors as to what had happened - a tree had fallen on her, a cart overturned, an accident involving a truck or a horse. Even she wasn’t sure – the past so elusive, like a dream that was real, but then disappeared just to turn back again into dream. During Josephine’s absence Victor had been demoted, but that was a small price to pay for the necessary caregiving after she was found.

Then word got out. She would do a concert – one long overdue, given everyone’s great desire. Was this to be her final concert? Was it really her after all?  Even she was unsure, given her trauma. It was the not knowing, she said, which troubled her the most.

That night everyone gathered and finally they saw her. The platform to which she ascended was small, tiny steps up to it creaking. Josephine slowly came to center stage and looked out. Of all those who had loved her in the past, many were no more – deepening the reasons for song.

The sounds she made first, barely above a whisper, almost a purr or piping, made them lean forward to hear. Many weren’t sure if it was coming from their ears or from her soft singing.  Lovely though, how she still threw her head proudly back, eyes turned upward, her fine hair blowing in the wind. 

Introducing each song with a gracious wave of her right hand, she began every one seemingly on a note no one had ever heard before. They sensed that whatever had happened had given her voice a new gravity – feeling new low tones in their feet. She warbled rhythmically and their thighs moved in time with the music. Her heart and throat added a tremolo causing some to begin making complementary sounds. She smiled and began tapping her feet. The crowd began to sway, finally to dance, as did she. Then she began to stomp her feet down hard as if to put an end to that past, whatever it had been, somehow similarly to end everyone’s awful suffering. “Enough!” she cried.

Suddenly she collapsed – the momentum too much. Then no movement anywhere, barely any breaths taken. However, she soon got up, finished her songs albeit on shaky legs. But those final tones, going higher and higher, accompanied by wild movements of her facial muscles, eyes flashing, and her arms reaching ever higher in the air - at the end the crowd collapsed also, though into a joyful kind of exhaustion. So long had they been waiting.

She descended from the stage. Victor was waiting at the bottom, his brown face full of pride.  Never had there been or would ever be a one such as she. Since then she has disappeared again. The last time anyone even rumored of hearing her singing was under a nearby bridge.  Someone said they saw her though, riding a horse, head thrown back, eyes looking up to the sky, but without any sound.