by Ivory Autumn
His stomach burbled and growled loudly. “I told you to stop complaining.” He closed his eyes, and grimaced. “Oh, but I am hungry. Fine, it has finally come to this. Eating friends. How horrible it is. But there isn’t any other way!” he exclaimed, his hand carefully closed around the beetle perched on his shoulder. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have a little snack. Times are tough. Friends, especially bug friends, must be sacrificed. I’m truly sorry.”
Just before he popped the bug into his mouth, he stopped himself, opened his palms, and wept. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bug. I didn’t mean it. Honest. Here, go, fly away, fly before I eat you. Don’t tempt me.” He flapped his hand, trying to get the stubborn bug to abandon him. “Go, while you still have a chance. I may eat you in my sleep. I’ve been known to sleep eat. It’s a condition that my whole family is inflicted with, especially when we are starving. We’ve been known to eat whole barrels of apples, cakes, pies, gardens, stores of mushrooms, and bugs while sleeping, without even knowing it. That’s why my family is so fat, except for me, that is. It can’t be helped, really, this sleep eating. My mom used to chain me to my bedpost while I slept, so I didn’t get fat like them from sleep eating, but they soon learned that it didn’t matter how much I ate. I burned it off in worrying. Now you see why you have to go. I don’t want to eat you by mistake. You’re such a nice-mannered bug, it would be terrible if I digested you. Especially without getting to taste you.”
The bug looked undisturbed at his words. It chirruped, and rubbed its wings together, creeping up Gogindy’s arm, back onto his shoulder.
“Fine, then,” Gogindy shouted. “Now that you understand the risks, I suppose my part is done. You may stay. But know this. You may become my lunch! Or my sleep snack.”
Gogindy sighed, dusted his hands of green bug dust, then trudged up the steps, murmuring, “One step, one more step, one and one more step makes, one more step, one more step more, and…” his voice broke off as his ears started to twitch. His eyes widened. His heart thumped against his chest like a trapped rabbit struggling to get free.
He twirled around, and gazed at the dark steps below. He heard and saw nothing except for the unsettling empty sound of a lose rock falling down the stairs, clip, clip, clip.
“I know you are there, IT!” Gogindy purred, his eyes scanning the steps with caution. “You’ve been stalking me for some time. Why don’t you come out into the light?”
Still the silence greeted him.
Gogindy waited for a long time, perched on the steps. When nothing happened, he turned very carefully and hopped up a few steps, then turned around and waited once more. He did this for a long while until he grew tired of it. He yawned, and without even realizing it, he curled up in a fluffy ball and fell asleep on the tower steps.
When he awoke, the moon was shining through the decaying walls of the tower, casting eerie shadows. The bug on Gogindy’s shoulder had vanished, leaving Gogindy very alone.
“Oh dear,” Gogindy cried groping around in the darkness for the green bug. “I hope I didn’t eat you. I told you it would be like this. I told you that I sleep eat. That I’m not responsible for my actions while under the influence of sleep. He searched, delving his small hands into every crack, breaking through spider’s webs and along the crumbly walls, in search of his small friend. But he could find no trace of the missing beetle.
“Oh MY!” Gogindy exclaimed, picking out a small leg of a bug that had lodged between his teeth. “I did eat you. I must have.” He stared at the leg, twirling it around in his fingers. “I fear I must have eaten you. What a savage beast I must be.” Tears began to spill down his face. “I’m so very sorry.” He moaned, and whimpered, spinning the bug leg between his fingers nervously. Then without realizing it, he began chomping down on the bug leg. When he swallowed it, he suddenly realized what he had done.
“EEK! I did it again. Oh, I am hopelessly unable to change my chewy ways. I’m sorry. I am. I am, I am, I am.
A rumble sounded, long and loud. The sound was so disturbing that it made Gogindy’s bones ache. He stopped sobbing and peered out the through crumbling walls. “Oh my!” he murmured, watching as a falling star shot across the sky, lighting up the foggy air in an orange light. The star grew larger and larger, its fiery combustions reflecting in Gogindy’s big eyes as it neared the tower. “I do believe its heading right for this tower. Oh, my but it is.” He turned and ran.
“Run, Gogindy,” he told himself. “Run!”
He dashed up the steps just as the star hit the opening he had just been staring through. It exploded in a wave of heat and flames, causing the bell tower walls to groan and heave. The whole right side of tower, began to lean precariously to one side.
“What is that horrible smell?” Gogindy cried, sniffing the air. He glanced behind him, horrified. The fur on his back was sizzling. “Fire!” Gogindy hollered, slapping at the flames as he ran. “Surely things can’t get any worse.”
Just as those words fell from his lips, a huge mass of brick fell from above and landed on one of his tails.
“Youch!” he screeched, yanking at his trapped tail. “For the love of mushrooms! Get off my tail, you lump of rock.” He heaved against the rock with all his Twisker might, trying to lift it off his tail. The heat from the burning tower was rising up the steps from below.
“Move you unschooled brick. Don’t you know that your place is supposed to be helping to support this tower. Not smashing my tail.”
The brick suddenly lifted itself up, just enough for Gogindy to free his trapped tail.
Gogindy’s eyes filled with wonder. “This is unbelievable. You actually listened to me?” He quickly peered underneath the stone. “Oh, my! It’s my friend. Mr. green bug!”
The bug was standing on its hind legs holding up the large rock with its front legs. Gogindy carefully snatched the bug back, and let the rock fall. “I thought I ate you. I’m so glad I didn’t. You saved me. My, you are one strong little bugger. Well we better go, before we both fry in this terrible heat.”
He held the bug tightly, bounding up the steps, away from the smoldering heat. Without fully realizing it, he came to the end of the eternal stairway bursting out into the moonlit night.
Chilly air hit him in the face. Smoke poured up of the stairwell like smoke flowing through a chimney, then dissipated into the darkness.
Before Gogindy loomed the Bell of Conroy, like an iron tomb sheltering the body of a powerful warrior waiting to be reawakened. The bell stared at him as if it was watching his every move. Its aura was severe, but grand. Silent, yet speaking volumes in its quietude. It was if it had been waiting for him this entire time.
It stood on a powerful iron rung, stiff and unmoving, even as the tower shifted and swayed. It stood like a tree, planted in time, growing more and more into its surroundings, never wavering. The outside of the bell was dark and coated in many layers of shadows, thousands of dirty lies, and desperate fears that could not be easily cleaned away. None of its previous shine of years past could be seen beneath the rust of mankind and the layers of misery and woe that had encased its silvery metal.
As Gogindy looked at it, awe filled his heart, and a terror filled his breast. In this bell was woven all the hopes, dreams, strength, valor, and goodness of those souls who had fought for freedom, a freedom that had now been taken from the world.
How long had this bell sat stationary? How long had its voice been quieted? The bell was huge. Magnificent. Powerful. It sat atop its throne above the world, like an ancient monarch waiting for its time to ring in a new time, to break the sound barrier and smite the world with its voice. Gogindy looked up, and gasped. It was as if he had climbed the stairs to heaven itself, where he could sit like a sovereign watching his subjects below him. Above him the stars glittered brilliantly, their light reflecting off the bell’s tarnished metal.
Gogindy stepped slowly over to the bell, feeling smaller and smaller beneath his hugeness. “Guess it’s just you and me, Bell, oh, and t
he bug.”
He held up his long, golden bell-ringing rod, and inspected it. It felt nice in his hands. Not too heavy and not too light. It felt like it was made for him, like a spoon is made for a baker, like a crown made for a king, like a pencil for a writer. He felt that it was meant for his hands. He liked that feeling. He hadn’t felt that he was meant for much of anything in his life, and not much of anything was really meant for him.
But the bell ringing stick was meant for him. It fit in his hands perfectly.
It felt valuable, almost like a weapon---one that was far more powerful than a simple sword. With it he would ring in something that had the power to soften hearts, change minds, strike fear in the wicked, and give hope to those who were lost. He had been careful not to fiddle with the bell-ringing rod until now, careful not to lose it.
He grinned. His eyes lit up as he gazed at the tarnished bell.
“I’m ready, bell. Ready to ring you.” He moved carefully to the bell and lifted himself up onto its stand so that his eyes were level with it.
“Oh my!” Gogindy exclaimed, going underneath the bell. “You’re so big. So extraordinary!” His voice echoed off the bell so loudly that he had to pull his leafy ears down over his face. “What a grand voice,” he breathed, barely speaking. Still his voice echoed mightily.
He stood in awe of the bell, listening as it resonated the sound of his heart beating, making it seem as the bell itself was alive. “My, but it sounds as if you are alive!”
Alive, alive, alive! the echoes of the bell repeated so loudly that it caused Gogindy’s hair to stand on end.
He walked around the inside of the bell, feeling the sound of his own voice resonating over him as if the bell had used his own silenced voice to speak to him.
A strange sensation tingled through Gogindy’s body. A feeling of urgency filled him. The bell seemed to speak to him, showing him things of the past, present and future. Of all the struggles, hopes, and desires wrought into the bell---the voices of heroes, the cries of the dying, the clash of swords, and the powerful hopes of better days, of those who died on the battlefield. In it he saw the sadness of the world, the woe that had bound it for so long. The fear in men’s hearts that caused them to hide their voices, and to let evil take hold. The bell seemed to cry out to him, struggling against the chains, the rust, the shadows, the lies, and corruption that held its voice so long in place, that had kept truth of hope from ever being heard.
Gogindy patted it reverently. “Yet, after all this you are still alive. Hope is still alive. I shall do my very best to ring you, sacred and most honorable bell.” He bowed respectfully to the bell. “I suggest you ready yourself to clear all the frogs out of your throat. When I ring you, I want you to sing loud and clear. Yes, clear your throat. Clear all the nasty mucus away that has been clogging your airways. We don’t want you to have laryngitis on your grand debut.” He quickly crawled out from beneath the bell. He stood staring at it for a long time. Then, drumming his fingers on his side, he marched around the outside of the bell, with his bell ringing rod in one hand, feeling a strange nervousness beat inside his chest.
Gogindy paused before the great bell and shook his head at the filth and grime on its surface.
“Tut, tut. Dirty, dirty. So very dirty. This is a shame. Truly it is.” He grabbed a wad of his whiskers, spat on them, then he rubbed a spot on the side of the bell. He rubbed and rubbed until his fingers grew sore and his whiskers grew black from tarnish. Gradually a small, shining, silver circle shone at him, gleaming like silver.
“There,” Gogindy breathed. “That is where I will ring you.” He inspected his features in the small circle he had polished, as if it were a mirror.
Proud of his efforts, he smoothed out his whiskers and realigned his belt. “Can’t have a shoddy-looking bell ringer, can we?” he asked, patting the little beetle on his shoulder. He straightened himself to his full height and twirled his bell ringing stick like a baton.
“Okay. This is it. You and me bell. I’m going to ring you. And ring you I shall!” He brought the bell ringing stick back, then crying out with all the fire he had inside him, he whacked the bell.
Thwack!
Gogindy closed his eyes and prepared for a great and thunderous ring. But only silence greeted him.
He scratched his forehead and gazed at the bell, truly puzzled. “Did I miss something?” Is there a string, a rope, perhaps, that I’m supposed to pull instead? A pulley? A gong? He looked at the size of his bell-ringing stick, then to the huge bell. He laughed. “Ha! Maybe they gave me the wrong stick. It is rather small. Too small for such a enormous bell. How am I honestly going to ring this bell with this…this bitty drumstick? Somebody obviously was misinformed. I don’t think they got the memo about how hugely, how largely, jumbo-lolly large sizely it actually is. Honestly. Who in their right mind could ring something so big, so grand with…this toothpick?”
He sighed and chewed on his lower lip. His eyes slowly lit up. “But I am a bell ringer, and a bell ringer can ring any kind of bell. Right? Right. That’s why they chose me, right?” A firm, and determined light filled Gogindy’s eyes. “YES. Of curse that’s right.” He tightened his muscles, and whacked the bell with the rod again.
Still nothing. Zero sound.
“Common!” he cried smacking the rod against the bell once more. “Don’t you know that hope is dying! And you not ringing is making me lose hope!” He whacked it over and over. “You need to wake up!”
Whack.
“You need to break away the rust!”
Whack.
“You need to ring!”
Whack!
“Come-on.”
Whack.
“I’m a bell ringer.”
Whack.
“You are suppose to obey me.”
Whack, whack, whack!
“Ring, I say. Ring!”
Whack, whack, whack, whomp!
Exhausted, he backed away from the bell, panting. Tears came to his eyes. He sniffed. “Please,” he cried, stroking the bell tenderly. “Won’t you ring for ole’ Gogindy? Stars are beginning to fall. And I don’t know what that means. But it can’t mean anything good. I know I’m small and unimportant. I know I’m silly, and forgetful. Sometimes I laugh when I should be serious. Sometimes I chase butterflies when I could be doing something terribly important. Sometimes I get myself and the people I care about the most into the worse kind of trouble. Yes, I know I’m probably not going to amount to much. I’m probably not even going to get into heaven. I’ll probably just be a hobo sitting outside those pearly gates, begging some kind soul to throw me a piece of cracker. But that’s okay. I know that I’m not worthy of much. I’m not strong and brave like my friends. I know that I’m a coward. But someone told me that I was a bell ringer, despite all that. And if I am a bell ringer, and if I was meant to ring you, and you were meant to be rung, then please, ring. Not for me. But for all those sad, frightened, scared people you showed me. Ring for everyone who still believes in truth. If not for them or for me, then ring for poor Andrew who is probably struggling right now to keep the world from falling into oblivion. Ring for him. Ring for those dead and dying, ring for Rhapsody, Lancedon. Ring for Sterling, ring for Ivory, for Talic, and those who have already crossed to the other side. Ring for Freddie. Ring for all my friends. Ring loud and long. Ring out the dark, and clear your long rusted voice. Let the world hear the voice of hope that brought you into existence. Sound your voice, and resurrect a world whose hope is now dying. Tell the world of all the blood, sweat, pain, tears, and hope that you stand for. Tell them that they can cast out this darkness. Let hope live once again. Help them find the power inside themselves that they didn’t know they had. Bring those you call to fight, to die, and live for the very cause that brings all good men together in defense of the truths they hold dear. I don’t know if I’ll ever amount to much, but I do know that I am the bell ringer of Conroy. And you, my iron friend, have a voice. I have heard it whispering to
me. So if you have a voice, do not hide it.”
He whacked the bell again.
Still no sound came forth.
“Fine!” Gogindy shouted, now fully enraged. “If you will not ring then---sing, SING, Sing!” He held the stick suspended in air a few inches away from the bell, with trembling hands. He closed his eyes, concentrating all his efforts, and every ounce of thought on the task at hand.
“Concentrate,” he told himself. “To ring a bell, one must be still. Still, so that the sound will ring true. One must be still on the inside as well as the outside. So still that a butterfly may want to land on you. One must have hope inside of him.” Gogindy’s hands started to sweat. His heart beat faster. He raised the stick high. “Sing!” he commanded. “SING!”
Without warning, a burning prick jabbed Gogindy’s underarm. “OUCH!” Gogindy yelped, dropping his bell ringing rod. “My arm. It burns. Oh it itches.” He ran his fingers through his fur and came out with his beetle friend.
“Wicked, wicked creature!” Gogindy growled. “You bit me! I should have eaten you when I had the chance.” He threw the bug down and picked up the bell-ringing stick, holding it above the bug. “I’m sorry my friend. But no bug ever bites Gogindy and lives to tell about it.” He brought the stick down onto the bug with a loud smack.
“There!” Gogindy gleamed. “Dead at last.” He lifted up the stick and peered down at the bug. Sure enough the bug looked to be very smashed. Gogindy felt a stab of remorse. “I…I am sorry,” he sniffed. “I had to do it. Really. It was for the best.” Just as he said those words, the smashed beetle started twitching.
“Oh, dear,” Gogindy breathed. “You’re still alive. How cruel of me. I don’t like to see bugs suffer.” He brought the stick down on the bug, harder this time. When he lifted the stick up, the bug twitched, and then turned itself upside right, completely unharmed.
“My, but you are one tough bug! Gogindy cried. “I can’t believe it. You’re still alive. How curious, and rather disturbing.”
