Friday 30 January 2015

Campanile - Friday Flash

The government troops came and took the church bells away to melt down for the war effort. 

The people in the village had no tocsin for when the enemy columns were spotted from the spire. 

They had no means of raising their god to come to the defence of his sacred temple.

They couldn’t call the farmers in from distant fields to come raise a prayer to entreat for their safety.

Nor could they toll the dead to their graves in the shadow of the campanile.


Both the village and its god’s passing were marked by a silent death knell.



8 comments:

Icy Sedgwick said...

I got shivers reading this!

Helen A. Howell said...

That's so sad, the bells were all important.

Anonymous said...

Short, but powerful. Very well done.

Unknown said...

The war effort took a turn for the worse. The enemy seems to have broken the forward lines and made it into the mainland.

Tim VanSant Writes said...

Nice work! But now I can't stop thinking "The Sounds of Silence"....

Katherine Hajer said...

This reminded me of the end of Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves, where bells show up where no bells have been before...

I've seen a couple of examples of bells which could do double duty as cannons -- no melting down required! They could be used for killing and tolling.

Nice variation on the "for want of a nail" idea.

Chuck Allen said...

A very somber piece. Well written, as always.

Anonymous said...

This piece doesn't break new grounds, but newbies will like it.