In London, it was the man’s lunch hour when he left the office.
He liked to walk a few blocks, then wander in and out of antique shops. He was always looking out for a bargain, and it was amazing what can be found in such places. You could say he had a passion for old things; small objects that looked as though they had history.
Leaving his building sharp had allowed him to walk farther than usual and he came across a shop he hadn’t visited before. Pushing open the door set off a loud clang above his head. It was an old-fashioned type of bell that bounced on a spring. The man at the counter was busy with a customer, which allowed him to stand quietly thinking about another time and another bell. It was on the handlebar of his son’s first three-wheeler bike. The bell, still sounding above his head, was much louder than the one he thought of now, but the note… the note that it sounded was the same. He and his wife were often reminded of how much he loved that bike. He told the shopkeeper that he was just browsing so that he could just stand there and remain in the moment a little longer.
He thought about the recent email he’d received, giving him his son’s hotel number for the next couple of days. He’d ring him tonight.
At that exact moment, that afternoon in New York, at an unattended hotel reception desk, the man who had stood waiting for a while hit the bell for service. He was intrigued to find that the bell’s tone was exactly that of the bell on the handlebar of his first three-wheeler bike. Nobody came, and this enabled him to stand with his vivid memories flooding back without external interruption. He was put in mind of just how much he loved the bike. He remembered the thrill of first sitting astride it, of finding how good it was to feel the pedals beneath his feet, of hearing the bell sound when his father flicked the lever. He could see the patient smile on his father’s face as he flicked it into sound over and over.
He was spending a couple of days here. He’d ring him tonight.