A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, c2 – poetry novel
The Bell Tolls on the Final Day
1.
ding dong ding dong, the bell sounds bounce through these empty halls like carefree children playing hide and seek with the death angel's song
and the death angel's coming, he's coming and the bell tolls, loud grinding gongs that chase him like he's the dog they need lock back in his kernel, but the kernel's a six-foot span box instead and he's not ready to be buried yet, alive or dead but the song's in his ears anyway, bleeding through every canal, every crevice
ding dong ding dong, for him the bell tolls
ding dong, ding dong, there aren't no controls
they play this game of hide and seek - they've played it - but now they've moved into the endgame and he's lost and he'd always knew he'd lost because he's the best but he's human and humans can lose too... and humans lose, humans die, and he'll die a human who's lost the greatest match of his life and that's sad, that's intolerable but it's humanising too if only his death wasn't going to be the blood-script that signs the world away and it's not even arrogance which says
ding dong ding dong, he's lost the game
ding dong, ding dong, the halls are maimed
the children still dash, their shadows chasing the bell tolls and he wonders when they'll finishing counting to twelve because that's when the bell will stop and this game and life of his and farce as well.