Nothing to do, of course, with the current situation*

The bells were ringing again today. Sometimes distant, sometimes close enough to shatter my windows, they ring now more frequently than in the past. More urgently at times too. Crying wolf or just plain crying.

And me? I deftly avoid the airwaves that follow, hollow and loud. Despair? Apathy? The naive belief that everything will be alright? I do it all. Is there nothing left but to wait for the other shoe to drop, at long last, and let it be over?

Sure, there were times the bells tolled a story so contrived that it couldn't be true - it couldn't, could it? - that reached beneath the surface, briefly. But all things pass, do they not? Look at the greater picture, they say; it matters little.

The bells are ringing again today, recalling echoes of distant beacons that shone with promise and hope, and now crumble greyly, choked by vines and grime. Mocking, the sounds drift away, becoming blessedly muffled as I take another dose.

* This, for example.

A beginning - IV

IV

After diligently having taken care of several cracked doors and windows in the spacious but aging lobby, our tenacious Mistress tackled the issue of pets and other animals around the properties. Though cats, both stray and resident, showed an unusual attraction to LDB, dogs had, for the most part, quite a different response. The day time doorman's dog, a large old Lab that seemed to have spent most of her time lying on a mat next to her master's feet, used to begin a snarl cut abruptly by a retreat into a corner when the old woman was rarely passing by. The night time doorman, with whom I was a little more acquainted, told me that on occasions, when the shifts change, LDB would pause and stare briefly at the dog, a fleeting sense of amusement in her eyes. Other dogs, large and small, mostly avoided her all together; that is, except for Old Watson's little mutt.

A Beginning - III

III

Shrouded in mystery as she was, LDB was forthcoming enough to slowly take the reins of the building's managing board. A compromise candidate at first, she defied her frail appearance to appear and resolutely drive the board relentlessly over its meetings. No one was quite sure how or why, but she was elected into a second term in office, and then a third and a fourth. And as some tenants came and went, the only fixture, apart from the Darken Maiden statue on the roof that gave it its name, LDB ruled supreme.

A Beginning - II

II

An ancient, partly emaciated creature, the LDB, as Jacob Nichols, who lived in the apartment above her, tagged, has lived in the building for what seemed to be centuries. No one remembered a time without her small wrinkly presence and no one, not even the rare postman, knew her name. Her mail box displayed a worn yet elaborate silvery name tag that may have borne its owner's identity with pride once, but now was illegible to all who took interest. Mrs. Craig claimed she could decipher a few letters, including a reference to some old world nobility title, but the overly thick lenses of her glasses inspired little confidence there. She did show LDB some respect though, going even as far as a clumsy attempt to curtsy one Christmas eve. Mrs. Craig refused to go into great detail over LDB's reaction, though she took great measures to refer to her as 'Mistress G' (as 'G', she claimed, was the first letter of her name) afterwards.

A beginning - I

As part of my ongoing and futile battle against entropy in pretty much all forms, I've decided to write and publish a paragraph a day. Of what? I don't know yet. This is a beginning.

P.S: to those who write me, I am trying to work on it; promise.

I

It thus became apparent to me, and indeed to all involved, that something had to be done about Watson's dog. It's not that the small half-breed terrier was noisier than the other dogs in the neighborhood - well, not by much, anyway. Its irksome barks and howls did bother Mrs. Craig, especially in the evenings, when the elderly lady was trying to unwind with her favorite soap opera. To be fair, the show's opening and closing titles - and some of the content as well - did encourage all manner of howling from those unfortunate enough to be exposed to the loud TV set. But it wasn't Mrs. Craig who led our tight little group; it was the Lady Down Below.