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:
I got shivers reading this!
That's so sad, the bells were all important.
Short, but powerful. Very well done.
The war effort took a turn for the worse. The enemy seems to have broken the forward lines and made it into the mainland.
Nice work! But now I can't stop thinking "The Sounds of Silence"....
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.
A very somber piece. Well written, as always.
This piece doesn't break new grounds, but newbies will like it.
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