The Bell's Call

A journey of self discovery, dedicated to the staff of Ward 35 at the DRH, who helped me when I needed it the most.

 

1

 

 

IN A DREAM like state I wake.

The forest around me still, the ground warm, the grass lightly damp with dew. The air is still and has the hint of the chill from the night, or is it the chill of the night to come? Light streams through the gaps of the leaves of the trees around me, casting uneven shadows. It could be morning, but not early morning, not dawn, but sometime after.

I can feel the grass near me bend and hear the faint brushing of legs as an insect moves near me. I hear muted echoes of birdsong - not overwhelming, but faint and far. The rustle of the undergrowth nearby causes me to sit up and look over, and I see... A fox? No, too late in the day (or too early) - maybe a cat by the colouring, or maybe a dog. Whatever, it moves away, leaving me in the stillness to wake to this new day.

Or perhaps I’m waking to an old day.

Something about the quality of the air, the stillness of it, the slightly used feeling… As if I’ve been here before, but a long time ago. The insect that was walking through the grass beside me suddenly leaps and unfolds its hidden wings with a musical buzz. It flits around my head for a moment before spiralling up through the gaps in the leaves to the almost hidden sky. I shade my eyes as it flies away, watching as filtered light glints off the gossamer like wings coloured with many hues. I try to follow it as it flies up through the leaves of the trees around me, but soon lose it. I wonder what it was, I’ve never seen its kind before, never seen it’s like. Or perhaps…

Perhaps I have.

There is something familiar about this place, a strange knowing, without understanding how I could have been here before, and yet… Yet, part of me knows this place, understands it on a level I cannot yet access with my mind or emotions.

I stand, and brush the dew dampness from my clothes, the air feels warm enough for me to not worry about catching a chill. And here, in this place, I don’t think I could ever be harmed. Instinct tells me that, or perhaps a memory. I lightly brush my fingers across the bark of the tree I had woken up under, the rough sensation, the feeling of life so familiar… Like a dream I’d once had and forgotten… A dream I want to remember, but can’t

Then the call.

I feel it more than hear it, I feel the pulse of its sound - gentle, but demanding. The sound of the bell and the echoes of the chord it forms. It stirs a response from me, and I find myself humming a tune in harmony to it. But, it’s like a faded memory - a dream of something that once was. The grass sways with the sound, and then sways back in the silence that follows. For a moment, there is no sound - just a pause. The bell sounds again and once again I can feel it’s pull, and I turn to face where the sound is coming from.

I know this place, perhaps I visited here once before - perhaps I dreamed of it. The place feels old, and yet somehow new. And the bell calls again, drawing me to it. A sound - not bitter or sweet, but… Layered somehow, complex.

And lonely.

It’s a call I cannot refuse, but somehow… Somehow, I know I have been here before, and yet have never seen anything of this place before in my life: it’s new - yet somehow old. Just born, yet ancient. The memory of a dream that never was.

The memory of a dream that never ended.

The bell calls again, distant - and yet I can hear the chord around it and realise that notes are missing, notes that maybe I can add? I don’t know. I only know the pull to find it is strong.

I start walking through this unfamiliar, yet somehow familiar forest. The dichotomy of the memory verses the lack of one, the juxtaposition of knowledge over primal instinct…

It’s disturbing.

I know this place.

But I know I have never been here before.

Or perhaps…

Perhaps…

The place is real, and it’s me that’s changed; maybe that is the dream. Perhaps I am the forests dream, but then why would I feel the pull of the bell? I ponder that question as my bear feet move through the drying grass, leaving a dark trail behind me to dry in the warmth of the day. I wonder at the lack of shoes, or any type of footwear. It’s strange… I’m clothed but lack shoes and socks. It’s as if… As if I have to connect.

But why?

I walk past the trees, my head turning to follow the echo of the sound of the bell, and still I hum the tune it forms. It’s familiar… So familiar, and yet it feels forgotten. I see more of the insects with wings of many hues, they buzz around sometimes landing in the slightly damp grass - maybe to feed off of them, or maybe just to rest.

The trees are different, no two alike. Oak, larch, ash, pine and others I have never seen before, but only one of each tree. A forest unique, filled with only one of each kind. Some so strange that they cannot have come from anything other than the imagination - or maybe a dream.

Maybe then, the forest is my dream.

Or maybe, I am the dream and the forest is real?

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

I PUSH MY way through the soft undergrowth, sometimes I hear a rustle as something moves through it, but I never quite catch sight of what it is. And instinct tells me that even if I chase it, I wouldn’t be able to catch it. That knowledge - so ingrained, and yet… How? Should I not fear the creature that may or may not be following me? Should I not fear it?

I don’t.

That makes me stop and pause, the fact that I have no fear here. Questions, yes. But no fear. But is that because I have been here before, or did I dream this when I was younger?

The grass is soft against my feet, and the ground feels warm to my soles. Yet the touch of the ground is reassuring, there is a feeling of belonging, a feeling of needing.

And the bell calls again, not insistent but still demanding of an answer.

But what is the question it’s asking?

The closer I get the more I hear the chord, and realise that parts of the sound are missing, that maybe I need to fill in the missing notes. But even if I find it, I’m not sure how I can fix it - or even if it’s broken at all. The sound feels far… And yet I am getting closer to its source.

I stumble on an exposed root and catch myself on the furry purple bark of a strange tree, almost falling to the soft grass below. I find myself in a clearing, not circular, for the edges are well defined. The clearing is square, or perhaps diamond in shape and filled with a slab of greyish-black stone. There are four plinths at each corner, three have statutes - old, yet new. Somehow, I know they have only just come to be, but I also know that they have always been. The fourth plinth is empty and surrounded by ruined stone, like it has deliberately been destroyed and left empty and damaged.

I cautiously walk into the full warmth of the light of the clearing and shade my eyes from the soft light as I look at the old (new?) statures - or perhaps sentinels that mark the corners of this clearing. Each of the remaining three face outward, perhaps pointing - facing - in a direction. The one nearest is of a knight, a female knight from the detail of the chest plate perhaps. The details fuzzy and warn, and yet the stone looks recently hued and carved, the detail crystal clear in places. The sword she carries is not sheathed but held in both hands and pointed towards the sky. A warning? Guarding? Perhaps pointing to something in the sky? I know the answer, but at the same time I don’t know it. I look up to where the sword is pointing, but only see clouds. Clearly whatever the sword points at is in the night sky, or perhaps…

Perhaps I’m missing the point.

On the plinth to the left of me stands a regal woman clothed in flowing robes, a queen perhaps, her hands out stretched each holding the worn remains of something that could have been bowls but have now aged to be almost shadows of what they once were. On the final plinth stands a male figure, dressed like a monk; one hand over his eyes, and in the other a pair of scales - the scales still hold all there vibrant detail, but there is still an air of timelessness about them.

All of them are made of the same pale stone, not marble - but something like it. Pale, with faint veins of pink and grey running through them. The plinths are cut of the same stone and well set on the black diamond beneath them. I look at all three of them, taking in the details of what I can see. I wonder what they mean, and why they stand at the corners of this clearing facing outward, and not looking in.

Sentinels perhaps.

But sentinels watch and guard, so what are they watching for?

Or perhaps they’re guardians… but again, of what?

The questions remain in the air, as I look around uncertainly. I walk to the centre of the black diamond, the stone beneath my feet cool - but not cold. Smooth, but not with age; again I can feel the newness of it, and it’s age. I can see the lines between the slabs, and how they’ve been arranged so that a pattern flows through them.

The centre is empty, and I stand in it and slowly turn to look upon the three statues and the ruin of the fourth, the one that has been destroyed and wonder what it was and why it now gone. I wonder what it stood for, because it feels like these figures have meaning - or had meaning, or will have meaning. Justice, Balance, Strength? Hard to see because the detail is faded and yet so new and expertly done. I wonder about the missing figure, the ruin of stones around it are streaked with black, as if it was struck down, the plinth it stood upon cracked and broken. No detail remains to figure it out…

And yet it’s important to know.

I pick up one of the charred pieces of stone and drop it immediately as it burns the skin of my hand. I brush at the skin of the palm of my hand, seeing the red mark and hoping that it won’t blister. What ever happened to this sentinel of stone happen recently, and yet the black stone underneath it is still cool, I rub my hand the soreness of it real, and reassuring. Perhaps then I am wrong; perhaps this is not a dream but something else, because you’re not supposed to feel pain in dreams. The realisation of that makes me pause for a moment, and that’s when I notice that from each corner of the flat black diamond base is a path, not of stone, but natural -almost as if nature has conspired to make the roads that lead here.

Or is it away?

The bell calls again, and I feel the sound through the soul of my feet, the stone resonating with the call. Faint notes of harmony come from the three remaining statues, and the charred stones of the fourth vibrate without making sound at all -even the dust around them vibrates and for a moment hovers in the air with the sound, before it fades away.

I try to face toward the sound, find the direction it has come from. Whatever these sentinels stand for, this is not where the call is coming from. Just another part of the puzzle, the puzzle of who I am, and where I am.

And it’s only then that I realise that I haven’t asked a question of myself; who am I?

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

THE SHOCK OF that realisation is enough to make me stumble and fall to the cool stone beneath. I end up sitting, surprised and stunned at so simple a question; who am I? It’s so basic a realisation of ignorance that for a moment, maybe an age I pause as I ponder the question. Even the call of the bell doesn’t grab my attention. Just the knowledge - or rather lack of it.

Who am I?

Why is that more important than why I am here? And yet, somehow it is the more important question. And somehow, it’s linked to the bell, and the call - a call for my attention in a place I have been before, yet never seen, never set foot in.

I sit for a moment, an age perhaps, before getting to my feet again and feel the wave of sound pass through me as the bell calls me forth. Interesting that the direction the call is coming from is the path the leads from (or is to?) the plinth that has been destroyed. There is a link to that, a link I will find.

Already the day feels warmer, so I can be certain of one thing at least: this is a new day, not an old one. But still… The light, the quality of the air could be the that of a warm sunset. That duality, the old and the new… Yes. That’s part of it. Not the question of who I am, but why this place is new and old, why the bell is calling.

This time when the sound hits me, I see the wave of air as it pulses out. It pushes at me, not gentle, knocking me backwards onto my backside. It scatters the ruined stone at my feet, sending them flying in all different directions as if they’re unimportant. Even the three imposing sentinels rock and sway in the blast of sound, but still give up the harmonies they carry. The whole world seems to shake with the insistence of the sound, the insistence of an instant answer.

And then the silence.

Everything stops for more than a moment, it stops for several minutes, maybe hours. Not a sound. No movement, as if something is holding its breath, and I realise that maybe I’m the one who’s waiting to breathe.

And then gentler, but no less impatient the bell call’s again.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the call seems to come from the path that was guarded by the ruined sentinel, the one that is no more and whose pieces have been scattered. There is meaning to that, a reason that statue is gone and the pieces cleared.

I don’t hesitate, I pick myself up, dusting my trousers off, the faint call of the bell in my ear.

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

THE PATH IS not simply straight, but curves slightly to the left. The way the trees have been placed make it clear that the path has been here a long time - or has only just been formed. That strange duality still exists, the newness and oldness.

It’s almost as if…

As if the place has been reborn. Or maybe I have?

It’s a strange sensation and feeling to have. I walk on, glancing at both familiar and strange foreign trees for a time before finally seeing the end of the path. Not just the end of the path, but the end, edge, of the forest as well. I look behind me, but the curve and trees hide the clearing with the sentinels. I don’t know how long or far I’ve walked… it feels like I’ve walked miles, and yet like time… Distance seems to have a strange duality to it as well, things being both close and far.

I walk to the edge of the forest, and discover that it’s a literal edge as the ground falls away, not in a gentle way, but as the edge of a cliff. In the haze of the distance I see the ruin of a city.

Time has not been gentle here, but also… Time has not been here long. With one blink it looks like the city is being built, with another it looks like it’s been left to ruin. I wonder which is true.

I spy a path that will take me down the side of the cliff, one that curves until it meets the path I have been following, and in the devastation - desolation - between the cliff edge and city I can see an echo of the path I had been following in the forest. Although again, the duality of the desolation… is it a wasteland? Or is it something else, just a desert? The city doesn’t seem far, and yet I think I have to go through it to find the source of the bell that’s calling me. I feel the pull of it, the need to find it and fill in the missing notes. The city seems to shimmer in the light as the note sounds out, as if it too is answering, filling in a missing piece of the harmony.

I gently make my way down the path of the cliff, being careful of my footing as there is no soft grass here and the rock is harsh against the soles of my feet, harsh but not in a painful way. In some places the path is almost worn away and I have to leap to get to the next part, but eventually it starts to level out and I find it curving round to meet the original path rudely cut by the cliff edge. At one point I slip but catch myself before I fall. I feel pain for the first time in the heal of my left foot, and it causes me to gasp and stop.

But the call of the bell is ever insistent and pulls me limping onward.

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

AS I THOUGHT, the path curved round and eventually met with the echo of the one from the forest. But where before I had been walking through trees, now I was walking through a desolation of multicoloured rock and sand. A dead place, or maybe a place that had yet to be born. The complete strangeness of this world confounds me, and yet… I understand it on some level. I understand the why of it - even if I don’t yet know how.

The desert - desolation, whatever I want to call it stretches on forever it seems, and yet the city gets closer with each painful step I take. The sand is soft underneath my feet, but my left heal is still painful on whatever I’d caught it on. Eventually the pain is going to force me to stop and rest. But I feel a need to carry on, even though with each step the dichotomy of the state of the city, whether it’s being built or whether it has fallen to ruin remains unclear. What is clear is that the city is raised up and that I will have another cliff to scale to reach it.

I wish…

I wish…

No, on some level I do understand. But part of me is resisting, Part of me is trying to forget, trying to let go and yet hang on.

But hang on to what?

I know this place, but I have never set foot in it before.

I understand this place, but I have never seen it’s like before.

I know when I reach the city, I will find no answers unless I allow myself to find them.

That realisation stops me in my tracks. The realisation that I know the answer, but am somehow stopping myself? Why would I do that to myself. Why would I hurt myself in such a way?

Pain…

Yes, the pain in my foot, which has now reached the stage where I have to stop and rest, stop and take a look. I carefully sit down on the soft sand, and look at the sole of my foot, at the heal and see not a cut or abrasion - but a bruise. A bruise that keeps growing, and as I watch in horror starts to creep down to cover my entire foot. I can feel it running up my leg, past my crotch and to my tummy. I lift my shirt and watch as it creeps up past my waste. I scream, but the air is empty - and nothing but the bell’s call answers me. I scream again until the bruise reaches my face…

And then I faint.

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

IN A DREAM like state I wake.

The forest around me still, the ground warm, the grass lightly damp with dew. The air is still and has the hint of the chill from the night, or is it the chill of the night to come? Light streams through the gaps of the leaves of the trees around me, casting uneven shadows. It could be morning, but not early morning, not dawn, but sometime after.

I can feel the grass near me bend and hear the faint brushing of legs as an insect moves near me. I hear muted echoes of birdsong - not overwhelming, but faint and far. The rustle of the undergrowth nearby causes me to sit up and look over, and I see... A fox? No, too late in the day (or too early) - maybe a cat by the colouring, or maybe a dog. Whatever, it moves away, leaving me in the stillness to wake to this new day.

Or perhaps I’m waking to an old day…

No.

No.

No.

This is all familiar. Too familiar.

I rush forward, ignoring the strange insects and trees. Ignoring the dampness of my clothes, as I suddenly understand the purpose and reason behind all this. I break into a run, and sprint until I find the clearing with four plinths - but as I suspected, there are now only two statues left. I try and remember what had been before. But two of the plinths lie in ruin, whilst two of the sentinels remain. A female knight standing ready with a sheathed sword. And a strange monk one hand over his face, the other holding a pair of scales that rock side to side in a non-existent wind. The statues look new and old, but I ignore that. I ignore the feel of the black stone beneath my feet and instead approach the knight. Something about her has changed, something about her is different. She stands ready, but her sword is sheathed.

I see the wave-front in the air before the call hits, the call of the bell - a sound that demands an answer. Notes are missing - no, not missing.

Because I am the missing parts.

I grab the hilt of the knight’s sword and with a grunt of surprise pull the blade from the scabbard. A stone blade, but still a sword. I walk to the centre of the diamond and wait, knowing that the call is coming - knowing that this time will be the last time and the first.

I finally understand why I know this place and what happened, how it got stuck - how I got stuck. I finally understand what I have to do. As the bell’s call sounds, I thrust the sword, point first at the sky, and sing the missing notes completing the harmony.

And as I do, the world around me is reborn and comes alive again.

I watch as the statues reform - the knight, the monk, the queen, and the silent one -the four sentinels that guard this world, my world. I rise and see the city in the distance burst into life and the desolation become a sea. I rise and I see the tower, my home come back into being and realise…

I am home.

I am whole.