Displacement.

The bells have been ringing now for a long time. As sweet as ever, the sound they make, a sound that floats through the dusk and fades into the disappearing heat of the day that is done.

She has been listening to them, unable to tear herself away. Hoping, hoping, hoping, that they will ring only for her. She wants, not just to listen, but to possess. She wants the people - the old woman selling sad apples, the young man with milk cans clanging against the wheels of his cycle, the flustered girl with her hair slipping out of a messy bun - to know that the sound is hers. Her sound, her bells, her music, though they too are being allowed to hear.

And one evening, just like that, she turns around, shabby slippers slapping clumsily against the hard, indifferent, dust covered concrete, and vanishes around a corner. Tired of wishing, tired of waiting, tired of hoping, tired of wanting. Tired.

The bells keep ringing, undisturbed and unruffled. They ring for the old woman and the young man and the flustered girl and even for the rat tailed, wonder eyed puppies who live behind the garbage dump. How typical really, that she who loved them the most, disappeared to where even their silver songs couldn't reach.