The neighbourhood’s morning bell rang at exactly 5:50 AM as always, and everyone was surprised that it still did since the Bell-Ringer died just the night before and he had no other family to continue the job. Still, we were grateful as the Bell-Ringing has been a part of our lives for years now, to have it suddenly disappear was….well, uncomfortable I guess? I don’t know, all I know was that I felt relief when the Bell rang at exactly 5:50 AM as always, and then again at exactly 6:50 AM. As always.
Now you might be wondering, “Why didn’t you guys get another Bell-Ringer when the man started to die?” and the answer to that would be “Why would we?”. See, the family that our Bell-Ringer came from has been the one ringing for decades now, it practically became an inheritance in that family to be the next Bell-Ringer, so we felt that getting someone else to do it would be disrespectful to the late man and his family.
A bit weird, I know, but we are an empathetic bunch.
Though that did beg the question…who is ringing the bell? So we sent someone to check it out, Jacob a 15 year old kid, well, to be more specific the priest in our town did while I and the others stood waiting for the kid he sent to come back with the answer to our question. But Jacob didn’t come back after 15 minutes, and the Bell had stopped ringing. Still, and maybe it wasn’t so empathetic of us, we didn’t send anyone else to check on him and instead, all left to return to our homes. Why? I can’t really answer that just that we didn’t really care who was ringing anymore. And it was 6:50 AM, and we all had jobs or school to go to. Family to take care of.
Humanity is so fickle, I know.
Though we did send someone else to check it again at 5:50 PM, exactly when the Bell started to ring again. And just like before, it was a 15 year old kid, this time named Mason, and we all watched as he ascended up the stairs to the Bell Tower. And just like this morning, after 20 minutes this time, the kid didn’t come back.
Then…they did. They came back at exactly 12:00 AM midnight. When the day officially ends and the next day starts. They came back fine, with no visible injuries anywhere on their body, they can’t seem to remember what happened up there in the Bell Tower, or if they did, they didn’t wanna speak about it.
We don’t know why, I didn’t know, but we continued to send kids to check it out. At 6:50 in the morning, we sent a kid in, at 5:50 in the evening we sent a kid in. And as always, they came back at exactly 12:00 AM midnight. A little dazed, acting a bit different from before, but still fine. Eventually, it became a routine, and we never sent a kid back twice. It became something kids at 15 would look forward to after seeing other kids seemingly returning fine, and them feeling burning curiosity to find out who was ringing the bell.
We didn’t know, we didn’t notice. I didn’t know, I didn’t notice.
How the kids that returned started to act less and less like who they were before being sent up the bell tower. How their smiles became too perfect, eyes became too bright, how their features slowly shifted to look nothing like the kids that were sent up.
Or maybe we did, and we became too invested in our routine to care. So we continued to send up sacrifices, continued to accept the kids returning at exactly midnight, continued to live with it, and continued not to ask. Continued to live blissfully as eventually we, the adults and teens who were never sent up started to die out. Continued to believe and indulge in too-perfect smiles, too-bright sparkling eyes, and faces that looked nothing like the kid that was sent up.
My sister’s 15 today, and she can’t wait for her turn up the Bell Tower.