The Bell

Short writing exercise working towards character development and building suspense.

Rye Gubblefield was a short, hairy, round little dwarf of a man.  His gruff voice was often preceded by his weathered, bearded face and the constant expression of discontent he wore upon it.  He didn’t like to speak, and thus chose not to do so very often at all.  If, for the sake of your life or his, you were graced with the chance to hear him speak, you would quickly find the sound to be akin to something like that of a camel in respiratory distress.  Yes, Rye was a man with a small vocabulary and an even smaller temper, who was feared by most all who knew him.

Rye was a welder in Nevada, where he spent most of his time alone on the road, or alone in his shop, either working or headed home from work.  He drove an old beat up truck with rusted out wheel wells, but much like Rye it was sturdy despite it’s beat-up appearance.  Welding had always come naturally to him, and he found that he enjoyed the peace and quiet as well as being able to work at his own pace.  Often he would just repair broken frames on local farm equipment, but every now and then he would get hired to fabricate something for someone entirely from scratch.

Today Rye, was in his shop, hunched over a roll cage that would soon house the rest of a dune-buggy, welding and grunting to himself every now and then.  Sparks flew from the end of the rod of flux and bounced off his short, hair-covered forearms.  Sometimes they would remain warm long enough to give his arm hair a little sizzle, but the majority of the metal sparks were cool before they actually touched his skin.  He had several pockmarks on both of his arms to mark the victories of the sparks who had managed to stay hot a second or so longer than all the others.  

Suddenly the ring of a loud bell sounded from outside the shop he owned in the Nevada desert.  “Ring!”  He would have had the place built on the same property as his home, but the city wouldn’t allow him to properly license his business in a residential area. “Ring!”  He had shopped around for some time before realizing that he was gonna have to drive 45 minutes back and forth to a location or pay almost a hundred thousand dollars more for a shop in the city.  “Ring!”  So he ended up finding a good deal on some land that wasn’t to terrible of a drive from his home.  “Ring!”

The bell had been hanging on an old yucca tree outside the shop when he bought the place and he had wanted to get rid of the damned thing right away.  His little girl loved it though, and begged him to keep it so he would have something pretty at his work.  He had wanted to tell her no, and to not worry about what he had at his shop, but as strong willed of a man as he was, she was just as strong willed of a little girl.  He ended up letting her keep the bell outside, against his preferences, and she just giggled like she always did when she got her way and went back to whatever she had been doing before they had discussed it.  Sometimes whenever his wife would come to visit, she would bring their daughter, and she would run up to the bell and pull the rope, ringing it loudly to announce that they were there.

The bell was still ringing and Rye slowly set down his welding

equipment, and pulled his mask up, just like he did every time he went out to greet them.  He could have hurried to the greet his wife and daughter, but Rye was not a man to move quick and knew it didn’t really matter how long it took him to open up the shop door.  He took a deep breath in, slumping his shoulders down as he exhaled.  A look of frustration passed over his face, wrinkling his forehead, and bringing his eyebrows down, furrowed and deep above the sockets of his eyes.  

She would always ring the bell until he came out, no matter how long it took him.  Sometimes he wouldn’t hear her for a while because of the sound of a torch or a welder, but sometimes he would just sit and listen to her ringing, knowing full well she wouldn’t stop until he came and opened the door.  As he sat on his stool and looked at the door, it felt like it was miles from where he was.  Walking to the door seemed like the hardest, most painstaking task he could think of at the moment.  His brow furrowed deeper and he dug his hands into the folds of his old, leathered work jeans in frustration.  The bell was still ringing though and he knew she wasn’t going to stop until he went to the door.   Rye, turned to face the tree outside the window and watched as she rang the bell smiling at him, beckoning him to come outside.  

He stood up, and placed his face mask on the shelf beside him, pulling out a couple of his beard hairs with a subtle “ting” sound as he removed it.  He took his first few steps towards the door with no issue, but once he got a few feet away his knees began to shake and wobble as he tried to walk.  He grunted with physical effort as he tried to move, but lifting his foot off of the ground was like lifting a fifty-pound weight.  He was more shuffling than walking as his breathing started to become heavy, and sweat formed across his brow.  On his face he still wore an expression of half determination, half pure hatred, as he slid his feet, centimeter by centimeter closer to the closed door.  Finally when he was close enough he reached out and grabbed the door knob, squeezing it with all his might.

The veins were popping out of his forehead when he fling the door open, nearly throwing it off the hinges.

“Stop ringing the f*****g bell!”, Rye half screamed, half sobbed.  He was in tears now, his chest heaving.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?”, his daughter asked in her sweet and perpetually innocent voice.

“Leave me alone!!!!  Just go away and never come back!”, Rye fell to his knees on the ground outside his shop, crying and sniffling and shaking.

“Dad are you okay?”, his daughter again concerned for her father as she stood by the bell outside the shop.

“Please.  I’m begging you.  I’m sorry.”, Rye still in tears, laying on his cheek on the ground, little puffs of dirt shooting up as he exhales strenuously.  

His daughter smiles at her dying father, as flies circle and land on her rotting flesh.  Most of her teeth are missing, and there is a strange organic topography as her her concedes to flesh, which concedes to muscle which eventually concedes to sun-bleached bone.  There is a rear-view mirror from an old buick lodged in her forehead.  An old buick that Rye had burned in the desert years ago, along with the bottles from the liquor he had been drinking that night.  

He told everyone his wife left with the kid and never came back, leaving him alone in his big house.  He told everyone he quit drinking because now that she was gone he didn’t have to.  He told everyone how much he missed his little girl.  He told everyone everything but Rye Gubblefield, a stout man of few words, with a short temper, well Rye never told anyone the truth

Author's Note

What are my good jumping off points? What should I do less of or do better?