"And then there were the months of clanging. Perhaps due to the construction on the new interstate, perhaps to a new industrial plant's workings, perhaps just to God reminding me that he was always watching me...but for two months or so I heard clanging, like the dull ring of a bell, wherever I went in the city. It seemed to follow me, to mark my footsteps with its slow steady beats, and to forbiddingly warn of some coming difficulty.

At first I embraced the noise, wondering at its origin, speculating about how its beat was kept so steady for so long. In the mornings I would open my bedroom window to the cold gray air and to the noise, and listen to it as I woke up. The dull clang, clang, clang, was as cold as the approaching season would be but offered me comfort in its steady pace.

As the weeks rolled by, however, I began my irritation of it. It followed me everywhere, everywhere that I went in the city I was greeted by the cold clang, clang, clang. At school, at work, driving down the road, it was always there, whether it was always real, I cannot say. The noise seemed especially loud in the mornings, as though it fed on the cold fog, and it became just a whisper in the afternoon, as it hushed away from the civilization of day, but kept itself ominously present. I never asked anyone about the origin of the noise...to me it seemed better not to ask, for it was almost more consoling to have that source be unknown to me."

-Rachel A. B.