Hell’s bells
I was the one who rang the bells in the village square so early this morning. My apologies if I woke you. But I was in a celebratory mood. You see, last night I found a sock. Not just any sock, but one that had gone missing perhaps a year ago or more. Its mate has occupied a corner of my sock and underwear drawer for all that time, conspicuously unpaired during the weekly folding and restocking ritual on laundry nights. But I never gave up on this missing sock. I knew that one day it would reappear. And tonight it did. Suddenly, there is was, statically clinging to an old bed sheet that had fallen out of the linen closet. I was delighted. I peeled the sock from the sheet, retrieved its counterpart from my dresser drawer, and put them both on my feet. After that I got drunk. (And who wouldn’t?) Next thing I know, I am knocking on the big wooden doors of the old stone church in the wee hours of morning. I woke the Vicar. He was none too pleased to see me standing there in such a state. That I woke him, and his family, too, was bad enough, but now he would have to talk sense into me (hopeless!) and then spend a few minutes on the alter praying for my wicked soul (again!) before he could crawl back into bed and resume his sleep. I told the Vicar my good news about the socks, and I lifted my pant legs to show him in the dimly lit vestibule. I told him that I needed to ring the church bells now. He argued, of course, along the lines of common decency – the late hour and all that – but in the end, being a wise man, the Vicar knew that it was easier to acquiesce in the form of a compromise than argue logic with a drunk. So, a deal was struck in which I believe I made some promises of redemption (that were quickly forgotten). Pleased by his covenant, the Vicar led me to the bell tower where I was allowed to ring the bells exactly six times. Then I went home to bed. As the morning light flooded through my bedroom window, I awoke to the sound of my own bells, the bells of consequence ringing within the tight confines of my aching head. My feet hung out beyond the edge of the worn duvet and my too-short bed. Even with my blurred vision, I could make out that I was still wearing the socks. My eyes slowly came into focus, first on the left sock, black, and then the right one, navy blue. “Damn,” I muttered out loud. “Damn, damn, damn.” A soft voice responded from the other side of the bed. “What’s the matter?” it said. I looked over at the mass of hair splayed on the pillow next to mine. It was the Vicar’s daughter. She had crawled out of her bedroom window and followed me home. How could I have forgotten that? “Nothing, darling,” I answered. “Go back to sleep.” But it wasn’t nothing. It was very much something. No doubt about it. Soon, I would have to walk back down the hill from my house to that old stone church, knock on the big wooden doors, and admit to the Vicar that the socks don’t match.
9:22:06 PM 
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