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"It is 9 A.M. in the town of Beyreuth, when a church bell starts to ring, filling the town with its jubilant cry. For most of the residents in this town, the cry from the church bell stands as an ode to life; a triumphant reminder of life's glory and infinite possibilities. To these individuals, the bell and its accompanying holler that it rang through the frosty streets stood to personify all that is good, and the righteous sound of the bell ward off the evils of the world and encapsulate them in a divine protective cocoon.
For one man, the bell had no such merit and offered no such protection or solace. To him, the bell was a nuisance; an audible form of the constant, perpetual annoyance he had the misfortune of calling routine. Because of the bell's loud clamoring woke the man up every morning, and to him this was what plagued him. In his sleep, the man was allowed an escape, albeit it a brief one, from the perpetual Hell which he believed his life to be. He spent his days in the ongoing pursuit to become intoxicated and the nights in a drunken delirium in which he forgot the woes of reality. It was the interruption of this state, as well as the relentlessly cheery disposition of the bell, which incited the man's contempt.
The bell's constant routing reminded him of the continuity of life, and it secured within him the acknowledgement that tomorrow will be much the same as today, as the next day will be also, and so on and so forth until eventually the man succumbs to some variable, which takes his life. The lack of glory in his life, combined with the superfluous presence of such within the bell's shriek, made progressively more furious as he slowly started to collect his thoughts.
A fine narration, if I do say myself" croaked a man in a raspy voice as he slowly roused himself to full consciousness. The man, draped in raggedy clothing stood some 6 feet tall, with long unkempt hair and a full beard. He had long since passed the point where he cared about his appearance, and he believed that grooming was an unfruitful enterprise altogether. He had spent the night, as he spent every night, in the gutter on the cold streets of town. Where exactly he slept was a matter of chance, as he spent the latter part of his night wandering around in a quasi-zombified manner which was fueled by excessive alcohol consumption.
"A queer thing it is, to speak to oneself as though you were introducing a tale of some sort, is it not?" asked the drunkard, in a rhetorical manner, as he dusted himself off.
"But, then, who would want to listen to a man in my condition? To tell the truth, I can barely stand to hear myself talk, as I've become such a grotesque wreck these past years...." he proclaimed, realizing the dusting of his clothing was a futile effort.
The man had spent the day and early evening before panhandling for spare change in front of the local bakery. He checked the multiple pockets on his coat with the vague hope that he may exhume some forgotten coin with which he could purchase libations for this evening, but came up with nothing; finding only a stench-filled abyss within his clothing.
Normally, he would spend his day begging for spare change in order to purchase a bottle of vodka, which he would then consume in a hasty fashion in order to achieve excessive intoxication. He consumed this hastily because he had the overwhelming desire to escape the conscious realm and plunge into the whirling sub-conscious where he found some refuge. The vodka went down like water, as he had long since lost the ability to distinguish the two, and he made the transition almost immediately from sober to be muddled.
The ease by which he could consume vodka occasionally disturbed the man, because he recalled, periodically, an incident which occurred during his youth when his father had allowed him to consume a small amount of vodka. He remembered how it burned its way down his throat and how he recoiled with absolute disgust of the foul liquid and the foreign sensation. How he longed for that sensation now....
The church bell continued to sound as the man regained composure, "damn that bell" he spat with considerable hostility as he slowly retrieved function of his numb legs. "How is it that those church-goers can tolerate, nay, enjoy that ringing? Do they not understand their lives to be utterly pointless endeavors of the flesh?" he thought to himself. He then let out a faint burp and began walking down the cobblestone street away from the church and its piercing ringing.
"What pathetic insects they are, the lot of them" continuing to rifle through his pockets for change as he strolled along the slippery sidewalk.
"Pardon me, sir, but of whom do you speak" spoke a young man, walking towards the drunkard on the sidewalk. He was a young man, perhaps 23, with blonde hair and a business suit and briefcase. The man was particularly well-groomed today, on account of a job interview which he has secured at a local law office on this very day.
"Oh, and just what is your name, my boy?" asked the drunkard in a particularly lazy manner.
"Joseph is my name, sir, but you may call me Joe for short" replied the young man.
"Well, Joe, I will tell you of whom I spoke earlier, as you have been kind enough to inquire. I speak of the entire populace of this town - from the lowly school child to the captain of the guard. All of those who are elated when that infernal bell sounds off every morning, the damned sound which oppressed me so!" replied the drunkard, surprised by the earnest desire on the part of Joe to hear his grievance.
"Sir, you will forgive my intrusion, but why does the church bell plague you so?" replied Joe, with the sincere curiosity of a child.
"It plagues me because it represents the false! It stands as a personification of all that is not, sir, and I find this paradoxical existence and reception on the part of the townspeople to be irreconcilable!" spat the drunkard, beginning to feel caught in the discussion.
"What precisely is it that the bell has come to so represent, sir?" asked Joe, unfazed by the increasingly worked up demeanor of the stranger.
"The bell, and the damned shriek which it unleashes upon this town, represent the false promises we are given during childhood. We are promised eternity, sir, brought up to believe in the divine in church; and to what avail? The promises we receive implant in us a facade which stays with us until reality brings it crumbling down on us in a crippling moment of cruel realization! Perhaps these realizations are a logistically truth of life, sir, and perhaps it is true and just that we must behold them in our old age - it is still no excuse nor validation for the bell and its constant reminders of squelched dreams and lost opportunity!" howled the drunkard, bringing himself further into the sermon which he now delivered on the streets of Bayreuth.
The young man stood bewildered by his elder's response. He had never thought of the bell that way, nor had he ever thought of the world as this downtrodden man had.
"What say you to that, young man? Surely, your youthful inquisitiveness does not cease here!" egged on the drunkard, growing impatient with the lack of response on behalf of the now lackadaisical Joe.
"You'll forgive my delay, sir, but I mean no disrespect by it of course. Perhaps you would entertain my reflection of the bell's meaning?" offered Joe, with an authentic aura of hope in his voice.
"What would that be, my boy?" responded the drunkard, shaking off the headache the bell had earlier befell unto him.
"Well, sir, to me the bell does not have a definitive meaning. It is to me a vigil of hope and a constant reminder that one must persevere in life; regardless of the ills the previous day may have brought on us!" sounded Joe, almost as gloriously as the bell which he had gallantly defended. "It is merely a reflection of ourselves, sir, or it at the very least provides us with a forum by which we can analyze ourselves, independent of anyone or anything else - and because of this, I find tremendous value in the bell and its ring." he concluded.
"I see..." the drunkard quietly replied, as the passion that had ignited him quelled as he analyzed Joe's words, and the impact of them had begun to stifle his rage. "Perhaps it is the idealistic sentiment in you that I loathe, and the bell simply serves as a catalyst...." offered the old man, now oblivious of Joe and thinking intently to himself.
"Perhaps it is, sir" responded Joe, who realized that his detour with the drunkard now threatened to make him late for his interview. "While I hate to be rude, my friend, I must depart for I have a job interview, and while I have enjoyed this impromptu discourse, I would hate to throw away such a fine opportunity as this one!" said Joe, now beginning to think about the interview and the preparation he undertook the night before on its account. "While I disagree with your conclusion regarding the bell, sir, I am delighted to see that it has the ability to extract from you, as it has from myself, a sincere emotional response! Whether the response was good or bad, sir, appears to be a moot point as the true value in this phenomena is the remarkable range of human understanding! Farewell!" he finished, quickly, and ran off in the direction of the church for his job interview.
Stunned by the humility of the young man, and the youthful disposition which he had held concerning his own negativity and outright rage the drunk man said silently to himself, "thank you, my boy, I wish you all the best as well...." delaying near the end as he realized Joe could not hear him.
Facing in the direction of the church, watching Joe slowly escape his sight, the man's eyes now came onto the pile of filth which he had spent the night on. The bottle of vodka laid empty, as though it had been licked clean, against the gutter's walls as water had begun flowing through it from the melting frost.
He began to feel his eyes fill with misty tears as he suddenly realized what a pathetic mess his life had become. Having just encountered youth once again, he couldn't help but feel unrivaled guilt in himself for wasting the dawn.
I fixed some errors.
This post was edited by Whalefood on Nov 18 2009 06:49pm
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