sounds like impending doom

I stepped out the front door of my building this morning, and my immediate thought was, “It’s quiet. Too quiet.” But I put the thought out of my head, and continued on my walk to work.

As I approached the bottom of the hill that led up to the Recreation Center, the bell began to chime, as it does every morning at nine a.m., (and every hour on the hour). First a short melody is played, which seemed, I thought, to sound extra cheerful this morning. I smiled as I hummed along with the tune, even though the sound of that chime meant I was late for work. But then…

After the light little melody, the bell tower gongs out. One gong for each hour; at nine a.m. there were nine gongs. My smile immediately turned to a frown. Perhaps in an attempt to counterbalance the particularly cheerful chiming melody, the gonging sounded extra heavy–extra ominous. I saw a scattered handful of students on the quad. Most seemed headed towards the library at a leisurely pace, although one ran crosswise to my path, each of her third steps coming down with the deep, resounding gong of the bell.

The bell sounded like doom, I thought, and then I remembered. That bell marked the official start of finals week. The first ones would have begun this morning at nine. My first one isn’t until this afternoon at two. I’ll already be in my exam room by the time the two
o’clock bell sounds, so I won’t be able to hear it. But I’m certain that by then, the thumping beat of my heart will have taken over.

Boom. Boom. Boom.