The Silent Organ

The bells started again. This time closer than they had been before. The intervals were short, evenly paced, and jarringly loud, creating orange rings in the sky like fireworks overhead.

Perhaps it was because she was sitting close to the belfry where often she watched the pigeons nesting in the early evenings, back when the sky was still a mixture of blue and grey. Von still closed her eyes tightly as they rang out their warning to stay inside; underground.

There wasn’t much battery left to the blue iPod Nano that felt so small in her palm. The soothing sound of AC/DC’s Rock n’ Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution started up quietly through the headphones. She had the routine down for when the blaring sirens started if only to keep herself calm in the onslaught of the coming storm. Perhaps it was meant to be, that her heart be silenced by the fury of warring nations.

At least there wasn’t anything left for her to lose.

Not this time.

She watched the military van pass under her feet on a long stretch of road, warning people to stay inside their homes. There was no reason for them to. Most of the homes were empty anyway- especially the ones that lined the schoolyard where a crater had been blown into the pavement already. All the citizens had either fled the main city or been killed by now.

A military official turned their head, seeing her on the rooftop of the old church and she took the opportunity to wave at them. She smiled. If they hadn’t had their helmet on, maybe she would have seen the twisted face of a man confused and annoyed staring right back.

But he only continued moving- like he hadn’t even seen her.

Maybe he was looking past her- just as horrified as everyone else over the fiery halos that littered the sky overhead. He probably knew it was all over for him too- just as she did.

But Von continued to bop her head to the beat of the song as she fondled a silver toned pendant around her neck. Entranced by the music, she ignored the violent end that seemed so imminent. It would probably just pass everyone by like last weeks’, and then start up again once the great nation’s adversaries replenished their missile stocks.

The heart around her neck was about as anatomically correct as stainless steel could get- which wasn’t particularly detailed, though it made quite the effort to be.

Bethany wasn’t very fond of hearts; the round ones with the little point. So out of a quick act of thoughtfulness in the parking lot of a hardware store, she bought one with a very prominent aorta for $9.99 and then cut a small picture of the two of them out to fit on the inside. It was a week later that Von had been gifted that locket over a dinner of cold left-over spaghetti and meatballs. Then, she was asked a simple question.

Well, it wasn’t so simple for Beth to ask it, as it was for Von to say yes.

One of the bombs hit the city; rocking the church and threatening the belfry to collapse under the weight of all the sin and righteousness that God wanted His precious humans to demonstrate in His name.

Von shifted back, away from the edge that beckoned her forward to the dry earth.

She wasn’t planning on moving anywhere unless the bombs forced her too. She knew that much very well.

She watched as one of the high rises on the dim eastern horizon crumbled into dust- fairly certain that she knew of a friend who lived there once.

When the dust had settled, Von switched off the song that had been playing on repeat, and stood herself on the rooftop, stretching out in the knowledge that she had once again survived another random burst of destructive evil.

There was a short ladder leading down from the rooftop near the bell. She had dug it out of a storage area in order to witness the terrible beauty of humanity’s self annihilation.

Her mother would have been rightfully pissed by the reckless nature of her daughter to make use of the ladder and a house of God in such a way- but unfortunately, her mother did as the military commanded. She took them by their word and hid underground. The comforting enclosure of a basement didn’t protect her or the thousands of others who had been blown to smithereens several weeks ago by enemy combatants.

Von expected nothing good to come of the world after that. Lives had been demolished for the mere sake of profit; families were torn apart by endlessly shifting dividing lines; regular people were forced into basements with promises of protection from the uniformed angels who claimed impartiality. The young woman’s philosophy had suddenly been put into question when the troops began their inquisition and the surrounding nations broke their own promises of a ceasefire. Beth had been caught in one of those broken promises herself and it really wasn’t fair. Fate had stopped her heart with a single bullet to the chest and left her body to rot on the boulevard without any warning.

To see a little bit of beauty in the most awful of scenarios was unfathomable, and one challenge that Von had adopted today only because there wasn’t much else left to do. Mourning? Mourning was for the living who were no longer fighting for their lives. She would mourn when there was an assured silence. At least then, she would be sure that the moment would be respected. For assured silence, there was no guarantee any time soon. Von was rather certain that she would never reach that assured silence at all. Maybe it was better that way.

She found her footing. The ladder’s rungs were well worn enough that she might have died from a bad fall before a bullet to the head or a bomb to the… everywhere. She looked down as she carefully made her descent, unaware that a portion of the ladder- an attached unit for a paint can and tools- innocently plucked the anatomically correct locket right off of her neck, snapping the thin rope.

Von watched, frozen in time as the heart slid off and down into the deep recesses of the belfry. It bounced against the floorboards, rolled down towards the church’s massive pipe organ and finally fell once more through a hollowed-out knot in the flooring below.

Hissing with expletives, she clambered down to the creaking platform near the bell and peered down the square hole. It was growing dark. The flashlight’s batteries ran out only a day ago and she hadn’t found the time or resources to replace them. The panic began to rise in waves through her chest.

Maybe she did have a little more left to lose after all.

Humming to herself the tunes of yesteryear, she trekked down the narrow winding staircase. Wiping her nose, she braced for the very real possibility that the stupid stainless thing might never be seen again. She pursed her lips, angry and afraid, and not yet willing to give in to the devastation that forced her to tears time and time again these past several months.

She had lost enough already- everyone had- and goddamnitall, she would not lose Beth too.

Not again, and not like this.

There was a platform at the front of the church, between the pulpits that was covered by a maroon runner. She flipped it over ruthlessly, and pulled a brass latch on the trapdoor leading to the small catacomb beneath. Reaching a short arm down, it was immediately understood that she would never be able to reach the bottom. She lifted herself out and sighed. After taking a ragged preparatory breath, she shimmied underneath the floor, and reached the dirty concrete foundation with old trail hikers on her feet.

Immediately caught in a fit of sneezes, Von managed to make her way forward between the ossuaries filled with the bones of those who once preached great hosannah and those who preached promised tribulations to come. Overcome with envy of the dead, Von continued on determinedly, and scoured the foundation for her little treasured metal until she was directly below the massive pipe organ. She swept her hand side to side, searching for many long minutes. There was a tuneful whistle above her head, like someone had played a high key to announce their presence, which was odd, since Von could have sworn they would have felt the footsteps of a wanderer just above their head if there was one.

There was a little clink to her left. Von’s pinky finger brushed the side of the locket and her heart leapt in sweet relief from the agonizing panic. She picked it up, blew off the dust and gave it a loving smooch, just as the missile landed half a block off from the church- shaking the bedrock ferociously. Crouched in the foundation beneath the pipe organ, Von shut her eyes tight and held onto herself for dear life, since there was no one else to hold onto her for her. The blast reduced everything within a ten-block radius to total rubble.

The church bell hit the ground with a resounding roar. Von felt the weight of brick and wood beams cracking and crumbling, entombing her within the atrium of the dead. She knew the organ above her head was now exposed to the howling winds; its arteries carried the mournful tune of destruction through the now wide-open plain.

She opened her eyes. She was safe, for now.

In reality, there were blockages from every direction, and too much dust piling up in the air to allow her to breathe comfortably. The sneezing started again, and persisted forcefully for a long time. If she cared to count them, she’d have reached 43.

Night fell.

Von laid her head back on the concrete blocks that held the organ in place, and closed her eyes, sleeping soundly with light breaths for many hours to the sound of the howling, musical winds.

Morning. The air was still and settled.

It was the light coming through the cracks in the floorboards above her head that woke Von from her slumber. Right by the foot pedals that were guarded by the organ’s half circle shape had left it without ruins to stray overtop. Prying out the old wooden nails until her fingers were bloody with splinters, Von eventually forced herself up beneath the organ keys, scraping her poor body against the narrow hole in the floor. Clambering over several piles of brick and broken stained glass, she reached a place to stand triumphant over the broken sanctuary.

Von looked out over the wasteland that she knew only as home, and pulled the anatomically correct heart from a back pocket in her jeans. She popped it open.

Life was once very simple. An eternity of love could be found in small spaces and within the tiniest of worlds. Their world was small, and their time was short. It wasn’t fair. There was no use in understanding what was meant to be.

But… At least for right now, there was silence.