The Bell
Gray and littered with storm clouds, the sky seemed to weep, its tears cascading down upon the earth in a violent stream. The wind sang a mournful tune, as it whisked through the bleak morning air and the sun was nowhere to be found.
Below, people lining the streets scattered, running for shelter from the persistent rainfall. Some pulled umbrellas from inside their coats, shrugging off the rain and trudging onward, while others frantically attempted to cover their heads with their hands, before dashing into safety of stores or taxies.
Atop a roof in the middle of the rain, stood a man; how long he'd been standing there was unknown even to him.
The rain fell around him in heavy sheets, splashing him and the roof of the building relentlessly, though somehow he didn't seem to notice.
He was of average height and build and he stood slightly slouched over with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. His feet were bare and exposed to harsh pelting of the rain, but that too was something he appeared to pay no attention to.
His normally ill-fitting white T-shirt was now soaked through to the point of being see-through and it clung tightly to his torso. His jeans were heavy with rain water, and they appeared to weigh him down, as he was seemingly rooted to the spot.
Drenched by the rain, his typically unruly black hair now hung limply around his face. His skin was pale, making him look almost sickly. Years of insomnia had permanently etched dark circles beneath his even darker eyes. Those eyes stared ahead, fixed on nothing in particular.
A bell tolled in the distance, it's somber tone rising over the constant hum of the rain.
At the sound of the bell he was suddenly spun backwards through time. Through memories, minutes and years he flew, watching the events of his life pass in front of his eyes at rapid speed.
All of a sudden, he stopped moving. Darkness surrounded him, enveloping him in a black blanket of gloom. But he was more aware of the insistent feeling of loneliness tugging at his heart. He looked down at his hands, surprised to see the hands of someone much smaller than him reaching out from his body. He raised his head to glance in the mirror at himself and then the bell sounded and he was ripped from this moment in time and thrust into another.
This moment, this memory felt strange. He looked down on it as if from above. He could see a young boy and an older man standing outside in the falling snow. A tall, menacing gate loomed over them. The child was small, with messy dark hair, and he held his thumb to his lips. The old man looked down at the boy and smiled slightly, squeezing his hand.
And again there was the bell. This time it was accompanied by the sounds of screaming children. Crying, yelling, screeching was all that he could hear.
The clang of the bell sounded yet again, and this time it was even louder and it brought him spiraling back to the present. And then when he opened his eyes, he was standing on a roof, in the rain once again.
It occurred to him then how fleeting life really was, and suddenly he found himself filled with regret.
A single tear ran down his face, and mingled there with the rain water. He was startled by the abrupt heat of it on his cheek; it was so different in comparison to the cold chill of the rain.
He began to think back to the memories he'd seen moments before. He thought of the darkness, of the ache in his heart. He thought of the boy and the man and the gate. He thought of the fear and of the loneliness.
He thought of his past.
He attempted to calm himself by instead thinking of the good in his life, of the good he had done, the help he had been to others. But all he could think of was the dark and the things he'd had no chance to do. His mind fluttered between thoughts of the life he could have lived, the life he should have lived –the life he knew he never could have lived –and then they rushed back to the sadness and the grief.
And there on the roof, for once in his life, he broke. His steely demeanor weakened and then finally shattered, and a wave of mixed emotions crashed out of him. Emotions he hadn't felt in a long time; and if he had indeed felt them, he'd just pushed them back into the dark recesses of his mind, where even he dare not go.
Self pity. Self loathing. Fear. Remorse. All of these feelings whirled through his body all at once.
His vision blurred as the tears began to flow freely from his eyes.
His shoulders shook with sobs. He sucked in a deep breath, in an effort to compose himself, but it was in vain. And so he gave in to the pain and he gave in to the tears.
The hand of everything he'd been avoiding, everything he'd been afraid of grabbed a hold of his heart and squeezed.
He clutched at his chest, gasping for air and at the same time for relief.
And all the while the bell continued its constant, inexorable ringing.
He knew what it meant.
He knew what was coming.
It was almost over. Time was almost up.
He closed his eyes and blew out a slow, shuddery breath. His shoulders ceased their shaking and his sobs soon stopped altogether. Once again his breathing was even, and once again his was composed, he was silent. He was himself.
The bell sounded again and he knew what it's bellowing voice sang of.
With each toll of the bell, with each passing breath, he was one step closer to the end. The end of the storm. The end of an era.
The end of a life.
His life, his end.
And at that moment he accepted it. His normal, practical and rational, uncaring self retook control of his body. And he accepted his fate.
And if you were to look at him right then, you wouldn't be able to tell that he had been crying. You wouldn't be able to tell that on the inside just a moment before he'd been screaming, he'd been dying. He would just be a strange man, with dark hair and dark eyes, standing on a roof, in the rain.
Closing his eyes, he angled his face towards the sky and let the rain beat down on his face. And for a while he stayed like that, motionless, listening to the sound of the bell in the distance.
Suddenly, his body stiffened as he sensed someone behind him, but he didn't turn around.
The rain continued to fall. The sky continued to weep. The wind still moaned. And the sun was still hiding somewhere out of sight, somewhere unseen behind the clouds.
It was almost over. Time was so very close to being up. He could feel it.
And as he finally turned to face the person waiting behind him, he could still hear the deafening clang of the bell. But that was alright.
He knew it would stop ringing soon.
Forever.