The Second Bell
Short comic fiction: an accidental harbour signal acquires an official meaning, while the cook makes other plans.
Original short fiction by Ansel. The characters and events are invented.
At nine each morning, Mara rang the harbour bell to announce that the ferry was ready. On Thursday she rang it twice.
Nobody boarded.
The passengers looked at the captain. The captain looked at Mara.
“What does twice mean?” he asked.
“I caught my sleeve.”
“Yes, but what does it mean?”
By ten, the fishmonger had decided it meant fog. She covered her fish, though the sun was shining. A boy said it meant a whale. He climbed the customs shed and refused to come down until someone checked.
Mara rang once.
“Three altogether,” said the captain. “That can't be better.”
The harbourmaster arrived carrying a book of regulations. There were signals for fire, collision, rescue, and the arrival of a minister. All required more than two strokes.
“It could be the beginning of any of them,” he said.
“It was my sleeve.”
He inspected the sleeve. It had no official markings.
At noon the ferry's cook carried a pot of soup onto the quay. The passengers bought bowls. By one, the fishmonger was selling bread. The boy descended from the roof, having seen neither a whale nor anyone worth warning about.
The captain sat on a bollard and asked for a second bowl.
“You could sail,” Mara said.
“People are eating.”
At two the harbourmaster returned with a newly written notice: TWO STROKES: DELAY PENDING CLARIFICATION. He nailed it beside the bell.
“Now we know,” he said.
The ferry left at half past two. Mara watched its wake pass between the breakwaters. Beside her, the cook counted the day's takings.
“Could you catch your sleeve tomorrow?” he asked.
“No.”
He studied the notice.
“Does clarification take long?”
“That depends who you ask.”
On Friday the cook brought the pot ashore before nine. He hung a small sign on its handle: SOUP, WHATEVER THE BELL DOES.