We decided that Eleanor Rigby would be from the South. She had a lover (unnamed), who lived just across the border in a Northern State. Despite their differing views on slavery, they planned to marry. Then the war started. Eleanor and her fiancé decided their love mattered more than the war, but Uncle Sam didn't think so, and the young man was called off to war. Devastated, he left to fight and she was left at home to wonder if she'd ever see him again. Rather than wait out the war, she decided to hide her identity and her gender and enlist in the army. Dear Eleanor hoped that by doing what she could to fight in the war, she could help it end faster so that they could be together.
At the Battle at Antietam, the warring sides met to fight. Eleanor was on one side and her lover on the other, neither knowing the other was there. The battle commenced, and both fought bravely. It came to bayonets, and after several hours, Eleanor's lover rushed to the aid of a dying comrade. He stuck his bayonet through the Southerner who was trying to finish him off, when suddenly he heard the Southerner's soft voice call his name. His blood ran cold as he realized with horror that he had delivered a fatal blow to his dear Eleanor. Sobbing with grief, he held her in his arms while she smiled sadly up at him, knowing that he had had no way of knowing that it was she who he'd stabbed. He left the battlefield and carried her off so they could be alone. The poor man was unable to heal her wounds, and she died in his arms.
Her lover, who we never named, brought her to a nearby town that was virtually empty. He brought her to a church, where one Father McKenzie opened the door. Father McKenzie agreed to provide funeral services for Eleanor despite her Southern garb. Old Father McKenzie had been writing the words of a sermon that no one would hear, for no one came near. He worked all night, darning his socks when there was nobody there. One might have wondered, what did he care? He loved his work and loved his church, even though the town was almost empty. The young man wept as Eleanor Rigby was placed in a coffin and Father McKenzie blessed her. No one came to the funeral service, because none of her family knew where she'd disappeared to months before.
But dear Eleanor was there with her lover, standing beside him in spirit. Living as if in a dream, she picked up the rice in the church where a wedding had been: what might have been their wedding, if not for the war. As she waited at the window, watching her own body be buried, the souls of thousands of lonely people wandered by. She saw them and thought, "All the lonely people, where do they all come from? Where do they all belong?" Eleanor realized that they were the souls of soldiers and other victims of the Civil War, lost to their loved ones still living. That is why they looked so lonely. Her lover could not see them, nor could he see her. He had eyes only for her grave, the sign that she was lost to him forever. Though she wished she could console him, Eleanor had no choice but to leave and wander with all the other lonely people.
This was our tragic story of Eleanor Rigby, which we acted out for our classmates. We certainly did it justice; my Beatles-loving friend lay in the coffin with a Confederate flag draped over her body. I was Father McKenzie, while another friend was the mourning young man and another narrated the story (we acted silently while she told everyone what was happening). Our performance was so moving, it might have been a tear-jerker...if only the rest of our classmates had any culture. None of them had any idea what we were doing, nor had they heard of the song. Only a few had even heard of The Beatles. At least our teacher appreciated it and gave us a good grade. And now, I cannot listen to "Eleanor Rigby" without remembering this story.
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