Bells

Once, on a fine September Tuesday when the air was bright and clear, every bell in the world rang at once. They didn’t play a song. There was no melody. Just one collective ring. From the smallest sleigh bell to the largest church bell, from school bells to wind chimes to grandfather clocks, every bell rang, all together. Most people aren’t sitting around in a room full of bells per se, but most people have at least one bell in close proximity to them. So about 8 billion people looked up from what they were doing –working, sewing, feeding babies, washing their face, writing poems, picking vegetables, crying, napping – and said out loud something along the lines of, “What was that?” And when it didn’t happen again, when there was no second chime, they all said something along the lines of, “How strange!” And went back to what they were doing. At least one bell maker went mad. I suppose that to some people – if one can bring oneself to call physicists “people” – this great, singular chime might prove the existence of wormholes or parallel universes. I suppose a priest might scratch his head and call it a peculiar act of god. A writer might pick up her notepad and begin to scratch out a story about the jingling faerie bells, or else a supernatural warning sign. A grizzled old general in a uniform heavy with medals and ribbons might chose an enemy nation to blame for this sudden occurrence and order an increase on security around the liberty bell, and around the president, just in case. I suppose a baby girl born on the day all the phones in the hospital rang just once might be named Belle. I suppose any number of things might happen. I suppose someone might be on edge all day waiting for the second chime, or else for the impact of the nuclear warhead that was surely coming. One might suppose whatever one wanted, for once all the bells have rung at once, anything can happen. But I will say this – there’s more fun in a fine September day spent ignorant of bells in the wood or ankle deep in a tide pool or in the highest branches of an old oak tree, far from physicists and priests and nuclear warheads than there is in a lifetime of supposing.