Sins of the Night

He never understood how a place so holy could become so eerie and dark when the sun came down. There was a thing about the candle light in the middle of the night that made a Saint’s glance become evil and an altar’s face an atrocious sacrificial space. As he walked into the cathedral it felt like his guardian angel had clocked out for the night leaving him all alone as he stepped inside. 

Wooden benches creaking into the darkness with only a few pious beings trying to escape the incurable burden of their souls. Candles with dying flames keeping watch as his mother desperately entered the confessionary leaving him all alone in the middle of such gloomy sight. 

He sat in the middle of the benches wondering what could be sinful enough for his mother to be so distressed, for her to rush out in the middle of one of the foggiest nights he had ever seen. What couldn’t wait till morning he naively wondered not knowing that in just minutes that woman would be mourning. 

The heavy storm trespassed the church´s thick marble walls, every drop left a sound in the tall ceiling, every thunder scared the non-existent crowd and the wind blew incessantly filling the navel with whispers of sorrow. He had never been here at night, he had never been here alone, as a matter of fact he counted the seconds to go back into the storm so the water could calm down his pounding heart. 

Just as his poor soul thought this couldn’t get worse, there it was. The sound of his nightmares, the sound that could hunt every nerve down his spine, the sound of the bells, the sound of what has always felt like ancient spells being cast to drive his young mind into insanity. For as long as he could remember, the bells had triggered the most terrifying feeling in his inside. His mother had always been there to comfort him, but this time her sins were so heavy she had been petrified into the confessionary, unable to appease the only fruit of her womb.

Twelve times the bell sang, twelve times his fear drenched into his blood, twelve times he begged for the sound to stop. Twelve times weren’t enough since the bell only stopped for a few seconds before its ringing continued incessantly and louder than ever.

He couldn’t take it any longer, that dreadful sound had to stop or his mind would be irreversibly driven into madness, he had to make them stop. Taking the last drops of courage that flowed within him he moved one foot after the other up the curved and narrow steps that led to the bell tower. It felt as if he were climbing a mountain tall enough to deprive you of your last breath. 

As he stepped into the bell tower his body was no longer his, it fell slowly down onto the floor aching in every beat. His very being turned into stone as the wind blew incessantly onto the ropes that moved the ancient bell as if it had a life of its own. He couldn’t bear it any longer. He dragged himself closer and closer onto the ropes that violently hit the floor, once he was close enough it was already too late, his fate had been sealed and his mother would be wailing in fear, aching in sadness and dying of madness. 

I took a split of a second for the ropes to trap him, to drag him down by the neck. The sound didn’t cease but his heart stopped beating as he fell down the tower held tightly by his now deadly enemy powering the sound of his death.

Ring

Ring

Ring 

The bell sings.

Ring 

Rang

Rung

Hung on the bell

Dead on the spot

Every time death calls, it rings. It rings. It rings…

His mother’s sins lead him to death, a poor soul that would open the gates of hell for the woman who triggered the bell. The sin of the night, the last time her son was seen in sight. The confessionary was the facade, the bell man, the accomplice on the spot.  All this time she had been dreaming of her son’s last ringing. A mother willing to sacrifice her offspring into the night for a reason that was hidden into deeper darkness of her spite. 

-Andrea Lucía @meetmywords