I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have lived in the cathedral rafters for an endless number of bell chimes. At first I thought I\u2019d count them to track the passage of time. It\u2019s an enormous hunk of bronze, the bell, and every time it rings, it roars so loudly I\u2019m amazed I haven\u2019t lost my hearing yet. In fact, though, most of the time I don\u2019t hear it at all; after so long living here I must\u2019ve learnt to ignore it, and only when I was much younger did it used to wake me up on a Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes the chime of the bell is so incessant it\u2019s impossible to ignore. When it rings to announce special occasions, so do my ears. I remember, as a child, church bells singing wedding melodies while beautiful women floated like clouds along the aisle. From this close there is nothing melodious about this bell. It only clangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plenty of brides have been paraded down the aisle but I find this one particularly interesting. I think, if I had some way of counting the years I\u2019ve spent here, I\u2019d find she and I are the same age. She sounds young when she recites her vows. She doesn\u2019t believe them. I can\u2019t hear the words exactly, not from this high up, but the vibrato in her voice reaches me all the way from the altar. When she finally finishes, the audience lets out a quiet, relieved sigh, like the cathedral choir when they reach the end of their practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
III.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been trying to count the bell chimes again, but when I next see my bride I realise I must\u2019ve stopped at some point, because I don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s been since I last saw her. I know her by the top of her head \u2013 I recognise it from when her groom threw her veil back \u2013 but I know the shy curve of her shoulders too, the soft click-clacking of her shoes against the tiles. She takes her usual place in her favourite pew, right at the back, and kneels. When she has company she clasps her hands together in silent prayer, but when she is alone, she sobs, wails, like something inside her has torn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cathedral is full. I\u2019ve given up counting but surely that much time can\u2019t have passed since the wedding, not long enough for my bride to be holding the bundle of white in her arms that I think she is. It\u2019s tiny \u2013 from this height I can\u2019t really see it at all \u2013 but its sound is so piercing I have to grab onto the wooden beam underneath me with both hands to stop myself toppling off it. Just like its mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019s quiet today, though. Come to think of it, I haven\u2019t heard her cry in a while. Not like she used to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I. I have lived in the cathedral rafters for an endless number of bell chimes. At first I thought I\u2019d count them to track the passage of time. It\u2019s an enormous hunk of bronze, the bell, and every time it rings, it roars so loudly I\u2019m amazed I haven\u2019t lost my hearing yet. In fact, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1129,1408],"tags":[643,1427,114,1429,1430,1431,7,607,12,1428,14,651,84,632,172],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1129","category-oct-2024-defeat","tag-been","tag-bell","tag-but","tag-cathedral","tag-chimes","tag-count","tag-her","tag-know","tag-my","tag-rafters","tag-she","tag-so","tag-time","tag-ve","tag-when"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-zD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2210,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions\/2210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}