A flash prose piece written based on a memory of Florence, as part of Asheville’s Monday evening workshops.
The bell tower stands in some famous city in Italy—Florence, I think, though it could be Naples, Genoa, Milan—definitely not Rome, definitely not Venice: this I know for certain. The bell tower is the important part, though its name still escapes me. I forget the names, but I remember the bell tower.
Built in Renaissance days, the tower stands on the bones of ancient imperials, rising above the Italian city whose name I have forgotten. It stands five stories tall, or perhaps eight at the most, though in my memory it is thirty, fifty, a hundred. Four euro required for passage—you hand coins to the dark-haired guardian in a ticketer’s uniform and follow the tourist in front of you to the steps.
From the open antechamber, the stones of the tower close in around you—the world disappears. All that remains are the stairs in front, and the cold limestone on either side—nothing behind; you don’t look back. Your eyes are set on the narrow step after step after step ahead of you, and at first the going is easy. Narrow windows sheathe blades of late-afternoon Florence sunlight, and glimpses of the city sneak in—north, west, south, east. They are soon forgotten with the next left turn, the next corner, the next bend.
At perhaps the eightieth step, the walls fall away. You step up into a landing. The air is cool, though you are hot and sticky from climbing—but it is only the first landing.
The stairs continue upward, and you can turn back, but the choice to do so is impossible to make—so you go forward, step after step. The windows disappear; there is no light but wavering torches.
People push past you on their way down—one or two of them at a time: unpredictable, irregular. But forward? You go forward as fast as you can, and that is as fast as the person in front of you and as fast as everyone behind you (though there is no one behind you: you don’t look back). The same red-shirted back leads you the entire way up to the second landing, the one with the windows and the well.
I don’t know if the bell tower actually has a well, but it exists there in my memory. My conception of purgatory also involves a well, people sitting around it, debating whether to jump. Those who decide to are frozen forever in time, eternally falling toward nothing. Or perhaps it only seems that way. Perhaps jumping is the path to heaven. I think I must have stolen this image from one book or another, but nothing remains of it save purgatory. I forgot the name.
You do not jump into the well.
Instead you take the third flight of stairs.
The bell tower is a perfect square at its base, and this is why every flight of stairs, curving upward, turns always to the left. (In truth, the stairs curve to the right—I have looked up the details, made sure of this fact. But my memory is stronger than facts). Every left turn takes you further into the darkness, every left turn brings you further from your starting point, every left turn brings you closer to a great unknown.
The third landing is empty darkness. Lights hover somewhere far away. There are no walls.
You continue to climb. Four hundred steps, eight hundred, a thousand. Silence drapes over your shoulders. The light leading you is dim. You start counting the steps, though the count is meaningless after so long. Ten steps from the step ten steps ago. Twenty more from that tenth step. You start, instead, to give the steps names.
I have forgotten the names.
The fourth landing houses the bells. It opens around you suddenly. Directly below your feet, a giant iron bell hangs still and silent, waiting to toll. Somewhere below it there is darkness. And further down, a well.
But the bells are not the top of the tower—one flight of stairs remains: fifty more steps.
Fifty more steps and you emerge into sunlight. The tower’s airy roof arches over you, and the walls break into spindly columns, revealing Florence spread out below. Tourists take pictures, gaze over the city. They have been here all along—in front of you, climbing, behind. As you stare out over the city, a single bell tolls in the distance.
It is six o’clock.
The bell turns into two bells, four, multiplies and reverberates until chimes ring through the entire city. The bells welcome the evening. The sun dips below the horizon, and after a moment sitting at the edge of the roof (you think, perhaps, one day you will write this down) you return to the stairs and descend into the bell tower once again.
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