The Chime Did Ring

The Chime Did Ring
By J. L. Young

My slumber's end. Someone's finger is jamming through the doorbell button. I, in haste, dress and descend the carpeted flight, all the while the chime did ring. In the instant, my hand contacts the brass knob, the bell ceases to beckon me. After turning it, the stoop there, alas is empty.

I close the door and climb the stairs to my office, pull the chair under me to continue the work I had labored over the past year. A few paragraphs into the day's work and the chime rings again.

I trudge down the carpeted flight, snatch the door from its frame to find the stoop again empty. I peek out and reconnoiter each of the likely hiding places to find no soul lurking there. In my discontent, I return to the office, sit in my chair, and set to typing my story.

The chime did ring out once again. Grudgingly, I step to the room above the stoop. There overlooking the welcome mat I find no sophomoric imbecile playing a puerile prank at my expense.

Yet, the chime did ring. To what intent?

I take to the stoop that nobody did darken. I look upon the button with a vexed stare. The chime silent. I turn about in search of the soul responsible for the bothersome "ding-dong." Alas, I am alone.

With a slam, I retreat to my office with the intent to let it ring. And ring on it does. I refuse to budge from my seat. Daring not to let that damned chime pull me from my work. It did ring on for the remainder of the day and into the murky depths of the night.

The stairs feel my weight as I take to them again. The chime on the wall now a target for my rancorous destruction. The cover flew across the hall and the device is divisively pulled free from the wall. The wire snaps as I wore an exuberant grin. I stand triumphant over the vexing and profoundly disturbing dinger.

I return to my words. At peace, I remove my shirt to mop the sweat from my brow, realizing the label was still affixed to the panel at its flank.

"Ding-dong," the bell went on. I tear to the hall to find the chime strewn about on the floor untethered from the wall. I caught my breath while I fire a sidelong glance at the door. With brass knob in hand, I pull the dark wood free of the frame. There, the same ever so empty stoop. The chime did remain quiet as I mount the threshold. A quick tap on the button and it fails to sing out its two-note song.

I creep back to the stairs and sit observing the chime, at last silent. I return to the leather chair before my Smith. The chime now at my side. My digits tremble as I rest them on the concave keys. "Ding-dong." The chimes did remain still, yet they did ring.

I wake to someone jamming their finger through the doorbell button. I descend the flight as the did ring. My hand contacts the brass knob, it ceases its incessant beckoning. On the stoop, there stands a lovely woman who sweetly calls me her beloved.

Her warm eyes questioning. Dread spread across my dear love's countenance. "What happened? Why did you take so long to answer?" she did beg.

"I...."

She tugs at my shirt, her voice embedded within concern, "What is this?"

I glance down, realizing the sanguine ichor had saturated its very weave. The tag affixed still.

I blink, and solemnly I stand. The shirt did fail to engender a memory, "I...." Alas, the words did fail to formulate in mind. The only words that could fall from my lips were, "I know not."

Her pale grey eyes and her soft hands seek to comfort me, defining the true meaning of compassion. This would bring me great happiness if it were not for the fact that I could not recollect her name. In this great universe why does such a detail escape me? Why does this lovely creature before me have not a foothold in my mind, nor my heart? Please, let this feeling be a truth which beckons to be a falsehood.

Alas, I pull away from the stranger as gravity grips my form. Her lovely countenance now all I see. Creation collapsing about me. No light finds my eyes. My chest aflame. Her frantic and worried tone growing ever distant. A solitary and solemn tear strikes me so warm. Her sweet scent, at last, beckons forth the memory of that befitting and ever so endearing name she wore. My beloved Aurelia.