Ringing The Changes

I am the one who heralds the changes. I welcome the New Year in and see the old one out. I am the harbinger of the winter months. I am the keeper of your village's weekly schedule: practice on Tuesday and two services on Sundays. I can be heard far and wide, through the village and fields that surround the steeple. When I sing, I am by far, the best, the most pure toned and beautiful of any bell ever heard.
I used to sing on Sundays to remind people to attend the church; but now I use my gifts to ring for the those who fester in the beds, late on Sunday mornings. Often, they are sleeping off the indulgences of the night before. For those people I ring extra loudly.

I sing for the weddings, the christenings, the funerals. I sing for coronations and celebrations. I sang for the coronation of the late Queen and for the coronation of the now King. There are not many who can claim that. I sang even before that. My song marked the ends of both wars. And I ring every November for those who are lost.

From my steeple, I have watched your village for many of its people's short lifetimes. I have learnt the precious shortness of your days. I watch as you waste the time you have in cruelty and unfaithfulness, in greed and unhealthy desire. Do not forget that from here I can see far and wide. All the houses, all the windows and all the people in the village are under my gaze. And I know all the people, in all the windows in all the houses.
There are many secrets known only to me and people behind those windows.

I remember if I sang for your wedding. If one, who you did not marry, appears in your window of secrets, I will ring for you.
If I have seen you deliver a kick to a dog in the street or behind your window, I will ring for you.
A raised first, a secret punch, stolen goods, false accounts. I will ring for you.

The village is full of people who come to try make me and my chattering steeple mates sing. I say chattering, for their conversation is often inane and when they sing they sound like starlings. Nothing like the sonorous, beautiful, purity of my song. It is not with false pride that I have named myself Alphonsus the Pure. It is a good job I have named myself, for to be high in a steeple and not be named is to welcome the devil to claim you. I do wonder if he has claimed my steeple mates, they have no standards, they deliver their weak songs for anyone who tugs their ropes.
However, I, with my name and angelic song, can only be made to sing by those who are pure of heart.

Those that I ring for often enter the steeple tower to try and make me sing. Often they arrive in the dark, the door unlocking for them. As if some strange compulsion brings them here.
They enter, looking lost, and proceed to try and make me sing.
So many try.
As they touch the bell rope, I recognise them; I know their secrets. These ones with secrets, I do not sing for .

They try so hard, pulling and tugging the rope. I remain silent.
The energy they have used to try and wake my voice directs itself to the bell rope. It has taken me many of your lifetimes to learn how to control this.
I get to decide. For some I just twist the rope around their wrists, pulling tighter until the hands that hurt another are aching with constricted blood flow. Sometimes the rope twists around their legs, tripping them up, sometimes holding them in one place.
For those with the darkest secrets, I do sing, but it is a different song. Loud and fast and uncontrollable. The bell rope wraps around them and they are pulled with it. They are unable to escape until the morning, when the verger unlocks the, now locked, tower.

It used to be a rare occurrence for the verger to find a person cowering in the corner after a long, cold, frightening night. The poor person will always claim that I sang deafeningly, incessantly through the dark hours; yet somehow, no one in the village ever heard a thing. It happens more often now, as the years pass I ring for many more lost than I ever used to.