by Mel Lees

The padres delivered it as if it were a baby being born to the padres themselves. They gathered the materials to mold a crude looking bell; and they lovingly molded and fired it until it assumed a life of its own. Gradually, the bell developed a position of awareness. It did not breathe. It could not move on its own. Its only method of communication was through its ring. To the padres, the tone was beautiful. To the rest of the world, the tone was discordant and harsh. A modicum of interaction with the world slowly evolved.    

The bell, forgotten except when it was time to pull on its rope, hung in near isolation in its bell tower. Over the years, birds of many varieties visited the tower and often built nests around it. A family of bats took up residency and provided company to the solitary bell. The bats slept during the day and the birds slept during the night. Bell had constant company.

A long period of loneliness occurred when no humans appeared to ring the bell. It could feel its clapper starting to grow a coating of rust. How will I ever be able to ring announcements to the world if I rust over?

Eventually, the tower itself rotted and the bell crashed to the floor of the mission. The bell willed as hard as it could for humans to come and rescue it, but it remained hidden and eventually it became covered with the dust of time. Although the bell lost much of its awareness, a slight bit remained with it. Cognition sparked a revival of its spirit. There was activity in the universe. Maybe the powers that brought it into being would come back and reinstate the bell as a viable member of this plane it was occupying. The bell's prayers were answered. A new group of padres moved into the abandoned mission and rebuilt it. Strange feelings inhabited the bell. As it felt shovels turning the rubble burying it, a desire filled it. It wanted to ring out and alert the world that life continued.

The partially cleaned room vibrated with gladness when the bell felt itself lifted and cleaned. It was able to feel the joy the padres felt as they started to build a new tower for the find. Throughout the community the jangle of the bell reverberated every week and the bell could sense the happiness in the things below it. Sometimes the joy of two beings reached to the very top of the tower and he clanged and jangled as hard as he could. Sometimes, it was not joy below him, but he sensed a great sorrow and felt loss in the things beneath his tower.

Years passed and the bell felt like it was an integral part of the community. It learned to ring out happily or sadly as the occasion required. One day, a ladder poked into the depths of the dark bell tower. Three of the things that lived below fiddled with the bell's attachment to the overboard. Devices were attached and again the bell descended to the floor below. A sense of apprehension consumed it. Am I doomed to spend time alone again? Will my beautiful sound no longer resound throughout this valley? What will happen to me?

Placed in a dark carton like those it had seen when it rang sadly, the bell was covered up, pushed and jostled, and finally opened up in a strange room, filled with all kinds of bells. It heard sounds that must have come from bell heaven. No jangles here, only the most beautiful melodies it could imagine. I must be in bell heaven.

Beings, far different from the padres who created him, did strange things to him. They rubbed him until he shone like the sun. They tinkered with his clapper and sides until he sounded like an angel was striking him. Finally, he was again placed in a box, to be opened when he arrived at his beloved mission. People came from all over the county to greet him and cheer when he was suspended in the tower. This time, he was not alone, but five smaller bells hung in their own tower rooms. Now, when it was time to chime out, he was the lead bell, and everyone on the town knew that their bell contained the history of the town. So long as it continued to chime, their community would continue to live. And the bell chimed for as long as people could hear it.  

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