Campanology

The sound of Church bells roused her. A pair of soft hands folded in either accidental symmetry or unconscious morbid self-ridicule. This day's consciousness invaded her with doubts about the path she chose. She completed nearly all the prerequisites required to become either a nurse or a nun, but despite getting close to fulfilling her ambitions in both fields, she stopped just short. She failed to become a nun because of worldly happenstance: she fell in love with a man and got married. She did not become a nurse because she believed the rigors of that job would demand too much from her and her familial obligations.

Mrs. Baxter spent the prime of her life tending to her family. Once the last of her children left her behind, her unceasing desire to comfort waxed and needled. Financially, she had always been fortunate; her husband’s job and her practicality left the drifting couple in a position to pursue whatever life remained. Mrs. Baxter despised the clichés of knitting and baking as distractions. She was adept at care and did not want her skills to wither. It was a shock to her how little effort was required to find a volunteer position in her desired field. A reserved incredulity was eclipsed by some proclivity towards naive kindness.

The resources Mrs. Baxter used to find information about this position were disreputable; she was unaware of this. She is unfamiliar with the predatory nuances of the internet. The interview process was oddly sinister, but again, Mrs. Baxter was too sheltered to clock it. She had not dealt with the general public in decades, so what most people would have seen as disconcerting behavior was mistakenly filed away as poor personal hygiene: a byproduct of work-weariness. The woman who conducted the interview reeked. It was that sickly combination of body odor, urine, and flowery perfume. This noxious lavatorial scent wafted out from underneath her full-length dress. Mrs. Baxter brushed the interviewer’s disheveled hair, stench, and appearance aside, making an effort to maintain a learned nonjudgmental hope. She could not forgive the interviewer’s shoes, though. She always looked at a person’s shoes. In her mind, what one chose to wear on their feet was a window into their character. The woman conducting the interview was wearing dirty medical-blue shoe coverings. Mrs. Baxter judged her harshly for this.

The interview itself was far more informal than Mrs. Baxter had expected, despite this being a volunteer position. Once the vague background check was completed, all that remained was a rundown of the job. No real questions were asked. The rush to go over the task prevented the actors in this mundane scene from even exchanging names. Mrs. Baxter was given enough details to proceed. She was to care for an elderly woman. She was scheduled to begin as soon as possible. Her charge was well into her eighties and dying from the usual combination of ailments: breath, blood, heart, mind; all inevitables, all incurables. Mrs. Baxter would be an attendant to death. She was expected to make those involved comfortable and to call out should anything beyond basic observation present itself. The prospects seemed relatively easy, and Mrs. Baxter felt herself qualified. The trepidation that remained in her was based on the humanity required to usher in a dignified death; as a concept, this felt oddly foreign to Mrs. Baxter. She knew that events such as these existed in principle, but facing them directly unleashed a sensation she had buried. Changes were taking place within her, and she tried to rationalize these changes as uneasy transitions.

A massive shade on the sidewalk announced her destination. Mrs. Baxter believed she had seen this manor before, but the structure always felt like a municipal facility or a museum. The idea that this place was a residence never occurred to her. White pillars and a stout gray porch ran the length of the building’s frontage. The closed black French doors demanded their main entrance station: erect with a posture of certainty. Mrs. Baxter stifled some nervousness. She attempted to justify her thoughts, saying aloud to no one, "There is a nervousness knocking on doors, even when the ones inside are awaiting your arrival." Unsure how strong to knock, she looked around for a doorbell, as those sorts of devices choose what volume is considered appropriate. There was no buzzer, but a brass sea bell hung just to the left of the door frame. On the bell's black clapper hung a white tasseled rope. Mrs. Baxter gave this rope a tug in one direction and a whip in the other. A clang shattered the silence cowering under the porch roof. The French doors opened.

“Hello,” Mrs. Baxter ventured with a seeking mildness. She was expecting someone to greet her. She was expecting whoever was responsible for the open door. As she stepped into this large space, she was taken aback by the room's emptiness. No runner was leading to the staircase. There was no art on the walls, no coat rack, no umbrella stand, no potted plants. There wasn’t even a vase of cut flowers. At first glance, there was only a short, round wooden table perfectly centered. Mrs. Baxter pulled the twin doors shut behind her and flattened her twisted dress down against her waist. “Hello,” croaked from her again. She coughed and cleared her throat, slightly embarrassed by the volume and tone used. Nervousness and shame gave way to misgivings that demanded action. Crossing her ankles low and clasping her hands below her belly, she stood upright and firm. She tried to add an air of composure to her slouching. She cleared her throat again, and this time with a bit more of a bass-laden tone, she projected outwards another, “Hello.”

To the extreme left of Mrs. Baxter, a board was hanging high on the wall. It was easy to miss, as Mrs. Baxter had done. It was also easily mistaken for a corkboard or shadow box. It was, in this reality, an old-fashioned set of ten servant's bells. The backing board was made of honeyed golden wood, and underneath each limp bell was a small black placard. Mrs. Baxter took her smudged glasses from her tote bag and squinted to read what had been written. The first nine were labeled numerically, but the tenth placard had a word scrawled on it. Mrs. Baxter moved closer so she could see it better, and as her vision adjusted, she was just able to make out the word attic. The moment this word registered in her head, that attic bell gave a sharp spasmic burst. Tinkle-tinkle went the bell, up and down twice: shrill, tinny, deliberate, forceful, effective.

The attic beckoned someone. With a sudden unmeasured desperation, Mrs. Baxter called, "Is someone there?" When nothing responded again, she was vexed about how to proceed. She had arrived here to assist but found herself seemingly on her own. Perhaps the attendant was already upstairs. Perhaps there was a reason. Mrs. Baxter wondered if she should wait. Was it not her job to help? Was it rude for her to proceed upstairs unattended, or was it heartless to ignore the bell's call? While nestled deep in her derision, the bell tinkled its tinny alarm again. Mrs. Baxter shuddered. It was a flinching motion, and the resulting momentum started her towards the stairs. A heel-toe walk scraped pellets of last season's road salt across the glossy white floor.

The stairs were faded black. The paint was not worn through but showed reasonable usage. Mrs. Baxter looked up and could see three floors straight through the square stairwell opening. Her foot trembled slightly as the first gripper pad found uneasy purchase. She thought about hesitating, but the bell tinkled again or continued to tinkle. This current awareness of sound felt longer and more forceful. She was startled forth again. Counterintuitively, she strained her weight upwards, resisting the urge to trip back. As she reached the first landing, the ringing dropped into the background; the bell's sharpness replaced by a mechanical hum. The noises were felt before being heard. It took Mrs. Baxter time to adjust. It took her time to regulate her heartbeat. Once her body syncopated, it focused on a brass globe table clock. The clock was perched on a high-arched dark wooden console. Mrs. Baxter had always been aware of the clichés about time slipping away; she had been aware of the symbolic messaging of a ticking clock and the sand through an hourglass, but standing on this landing, for the first time in her life, she felt she understood the true crush of weight behind the passage of time. She felt each tick of that clock siphon life from her; she watched the second hand make its casual pass on the clock’s face. She watched it race from 9 to 3. She watched the minute hand trailing the seconds-rabbit; hobbling along sullen, helpless. She felt nerve pain in her hip as the very essence of her lifeblood was leeched away; the servant’s call rang again! Mrs. Baxter pushed off into ascension. The forked spark of a rubber mallet slamming into her heel was ignored, weakness radiating down her left side.

Her right hand clung to the banister as she hoisted herself toward the second landing. Two short steps down from the landing, A small mercury-backed pearl-inlaid mirror hung on the far wall at eye level. The physiognomy that Mrs. Baxter beheld in that mirror bore no resemblance to her expectations. She struggled against her fear, trying not to lose her precarious balance. The Mrs. Baxter that she believed herself to be looked nothing like this frizzy-haired droop-eyed creature. Had she not seen herself before she left home today? Was this a demented painting or illustration? She climbed the remaining two stairs and moved toward the mirror. Its reflection behaved as expected, but the aspect was woefully incorrect. Mrs. Baxter wondered what had happened to her hat or her habit. She looked below her, eyes scanning the stairs, searching for something that may have fallen off. She looked back at the reflection and burst into tears. She gasped. Her bangs were chopped to shit! She tried to flatten the frayed gray coils with a frantic pawing. Deep scours of mascara carved into her cheeks; she prodded the puffs under her eyes with her index finger, pulling the skin taut and releasing it. When her reflection remained unchanged, Mrs. Baxter felt soul-crushing dejection. The insult to her vanity was too great. Confused and disoriented, her hip zapped, radiating both up and down her torso. She wanted to crumble into a puddle, but the attic bell tinkled again. This time, the bell was frantic: broken glass in a blender. Unthinking, she staggered prone, crawling riser by riser towards the third landing.

The final few stairs purged Mrs. Baxter's body onto yet more painted wood. This was the open-concept third floor. Far to the left was a slim, horizontal window stretching along the wall. In front of this window was a cushioned bench seat. On the seat rested a maroon corduroy pillow. Mrs. Baxter gathered her resolve and rose to her feet. She shuffled towards the window. The medical-blue shoe coverings she wore ground sediment and sand deep into the floor, scratching the paint with each scuffing amble. Upon reaching her destination, she stared longingly out the window into the muddy field below. What had been a glorious spring morning shifted into an ominous dusky sunset. Mrs. Baxter sighed, bending at the waist. She gripped the red corduroy pillow like a steering wheel, but her hands were at 9 and 3, not the preferred 10 and 2. She slowly turned her body, holding the pillow in front of her, allowing its weight to guide her like a dowsing rod. She saw three stout risers before her; they led one final story up into the attic, towards the source of that incessant and gnawing tinkling. Mrs. Baxter’s steps were assured; duty and obligation replacing trepidation, nervousness, confusion, and doubt.

A thin wrist arched delicately, twisting upwards towards a silken tasseled bell pull. A powdery, doily-like body nestled in heavy white down. Joints and bones abandoned on the soft mattress like dry kindling sticks. Each downward tug of the cord willfully entreated death. The rapidity of the ringing might have been triggered by worsening essential tremors, but the puller's desperation was visible between spasms. Mrs. Baxter entered the room as her charge collapsed back into the wall of pillows that served as a headboard. Mrs. Baxter, still holding her own pillow at 9 and 3, stalked towards the manor's elderly owner. Milky eyes obscured any true reaction. Mrs. Baxter could not tell if what was being felt was horror or relief. The red corduroy pillow was shoved downward onto a face. A body was shredded, tangling like a dusty web in the sheets and blankets. The tenth servant’s bell went silent for good. Distant Church bells tolled for evening Mass, filling the newborn void. Mrs. Baxter listened intently, counting along with each chime as she quietly pondered her decisions.