One day, Tommy found a rock shaped like a piano. He was digging with a hand rake in the dirt of his garden.
At first, the rock looked like a rock. It was only when he turned it over that he saw it was shaped like a piano. He sat in the dirt, awestruck. The rock was black and white. It had keys and a lid and feet. The piano was all one rock, but accurate down to a ledge for the music. He touched the keys with one finger, but it was just a rock.
Tommy took it to his wife. She lay on the sofa watching a soap opera.
Look what I found.
She frowned and held the rock close to her eyes. She looked puzzled.
Where’d you get this thing?
In the garden. Ain’t it weird.
Just some trash somebody bought in a store.
She turned back to the television.
Tommy held the rock shaped like a piano in his palm. He felt hurt. He hated damn piano music, but for the first time in his life, he cried. He felt like a sissy.
She stared up at him with her nose wrinkled.
What the hell are you doing? Get back to that garden.
He held the rock hard and hit her in the head. She screamed, but he hit and hit. Blood splattered on the floor and the sofa. She crawled. But he followed her, crying, hitting her with the rock until she stopped.
His arm kept going up and down like it was mechanical.
He felt happy, then sad, then neutral.
Then he knew what he did. The black and white of the keys was streaked with red.
Tommy knew his old life was over. The fishing.
He walked down the hall to hold his baby boy.
The boy had a room to himself, and a crib. Tommy looked down into the blanket. The child snored. His hair was sweated into clots. He twitched.
Love flooded through Tommy. He hated it. The rock shaped like a piano went up and down.
Tommy felt horror, then suicidal, then neutral.
Blood dripped from the crib to the rug.
Police came a day later. Tommy sat on the sofa, holding the rock in his hand. He didn’t speak. He smiled.
The rock had played for him all night. It played then; a pretty tune.
David Flynn was born in the textile mill company town of Bemis, T.N. His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and university teacher. He has five degrees and is both a Fulbright Senior Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist with a recent grant in Indonesia. His literary publications total more than two hundred. He currently lives in Nashville, T.N., where he is director of the Musicians Reunion, an annual blues festival now in its 35th year.
