The Bell Without a Tower
Key art
Filed beside the screening
The picture is The Bell Without a Tower.
Scenario
2:57 · 16:9
A cracked bronze bell lies on its side in wet grass, mouth open toward wet slate. Hemp rope loops the crown and runs off into the grass, thick, and then stops, the drag started and given up. The clapper hangs still. There is no tower, no yoke, no village beyond the trees. Rain ticks on the bronze and on the leaves. The sound is small. The bell does not answer it with a note of its own. A faceless stone figure stands beside the bell. Rain beads on the stone and on the bronze alike. The figure has no hands.
The rope's free end points into the grass and not toward any road. Grass has grown through a loop and holds it without being asked. The crack in the bell holds a dark line of wet. The clapper's tip rests against bronze and does not swing when a drop hits it. Minutes pass as rain, as beads gathering on the faceless head and running off where a chin would be, and as the bell staying on its side. No one comes down the path to finish the drag. The trees drip. The figure does not turn its blank toward the sound.
The rope tightens. Grass bends along its length. The bell shifts a finger's width on the slate and then settles. No one is on the rope. The clapper does not strike. The tightened rope hums a note too low to be the bell's voice, a sound in hemp, and the hum dies. The figure's stone takes the rain and does not move its feet. The drag does not resume toward a road that is not there.
The rope goes slack again. The free end lies where it lay, pointed into the grass and not toward any road. Inside the broken bell, the rope passes through a crack. Beyond the lip there are only stones and cloud. The faceless figure stands in the same place. A bead of rain runs the crack from crown to lip and stops at the slate. It does not ring anything. The bell, having shifted once, shifts back that same finger's width and finds its old dent in the grass. The return follows the tightening and undoes only the distance, not the fact that the rope pulled.
The hemp darkens with the wet and does not coil itself. The bell mouth stays open. The clapper stays still. Cloud moves past the lip, and the stone figure keeps its place with nothing on its face to watch with. The rope stays slack. The dent in the grass holds the bronze, and no hand arrives to belong to the figure.
Leaves drip onto the crown and run into the crack. The clapper does not answer a single drop. The stone figure's blank takes the weather and keeps no expression to change. Grass bent by the tightening stands halfway back up and then stops, neither flat nor upright. The free end of the hemp still points into the grass. Cloud keeps passing the open mouth, and the bell does not roll onto its lip.