The picking and strumming, there at the start, was the plan. A few opening chords. Nobody reckoned on a squeal splitting the air.

But doesn’t the baby’s joyous shriek—in that gloomy, bare church—make the perfect lead-in?

It was Janelle’s baby, I think. Janelle is the soprano way over on the tail end. Bedtime loomed and the mother would be going home to—with—her family, rendering a wee person’s bliss complete.

P.S. We were there, yes. We were sitting on one of the cold hard church benches. Sometimes, seeking the sublime, you just have to brave the elements.


 


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