#wind-chimes

風鈴（ふうりん）は、風に揺れることで音を奏でる伝統的な日本の夏の装飾品です。一般的には、ガラスや陶器でできた丸い形状の容器があり、その中に小さな仕掛けや粒子が入っています。風が吹くと、風鈴が揺れ、中の仕掛けがぶつかり合って心地よい音が鳴ります。

風鈴は夏の風物詩として、暑い季節に涼を感じるために使用されます。また、風鈴の音が虫を寄せ付けないと信じられていることもあり、虫除けとしての効果も期待されています。

日本の夏祭りやお盆の時期には、多くの場所で風鈴が飾られ、夏の風情を楽しむためのアイテムとして親しまれています。風鈴はデザインや材質にもバリエーションがあり、季節感や地域ごとの伝統に合わせて様々な種類が製造・販売されています。

I just got done practicing a dance cover, and I sit down to break for a little while because my foot is hurting.

And my wind-chimes all (minus the glass one in the window) started chiming together... without anything touching them...

Let me show you my room a little so you can see my freak out... 4-poster Water bed. Strings of yarn connecting the long sides (to hold my roses). There's the purple glass wind-chime in the window behind the roses. There's the BROWN WIND CHIME on the string second to the end on the rose line. (If you can't really tell, it's that brown circle in the middle of the window.) This is on the west side of my bed:

Then there's my fairy chime on the south east bed post. You can kinda see the yarn string moving straight to the top of the photo. (I'm sitting on the floor under the string rn, so that's the view you see)

and the silver chime under my Jack Skellington hat on the north-east bed post.

and then the dream-catcher wind chime on my ceiling. (this is the one that shakes when the neighbors have rough sex...)

I thought that when I sat down, maybe I bumped something that caused my bed to shake the chimes since they're all connected to my bed. So I didn't worry too much about it... but then while I was sitting very still on my bed, the brown one behind me (because I typically face east) chimed. I thought maybe it was my cat... but I looked to the left, and she was lying there asleep in the middle of my bed in a pile of pillows... So it couldn't have been her. I looked forward and resumed playing on the computer...

my fingers suddenly got really, really cold,

and it happened again.

I looked at Bagheera, and she was staring intently at the south-west corner behind me.

I couldn't look. I didn't want to. Whatever it was woke up my cat and was playing with my wind chime.

The WINDOWS WERE CLOSED. The heater in my room is never on because the water bed is heated, so I don't need it. There is no one home other than my cat and myself. My music was off, it was dead silent in the room apart from the chime. Nothing was moving it, but it chimed.

I started texting a friend as I freaked out, then decided to calmly run a mini-experiment. I shook, and wobbled around as much as I could while still being seated, legs over the edge of my bed.... Not one of the chimes rang. My movements can't cause the chimes to ring unless I have my hand on one of the posts and SHAKE it violently.

A few moments later, I'm talking on the phone, and the brown chime goes again, but this time only one metal column was hit, like a triangle.

I got up and started playing with my other chimes, and Bagheera starts meowing desperately, dashes towards me, and stands on her hind legs while beating her front paws against my stomach as she tries to climb up me. I pet her, and she meows again, desperately. I stopped what I was doing to hold her. She started purring and rubbing her head under my chin.

Bagheera calmed down quite a bit.

I then tried hitting my south-east post (the one with the fairy-chime) to see what happened.

It, as I predicted, moved the silver-chime that's connected slightly with the string... nothing happened to the brown one. I hit it again, harder, and again, the silver-chime and fairy-chimes went, but not the brown one. I hit it again (while holding my cat) lighter this time...

and a few seconds later the brown one VISIBLY CHIMED.

I saw the little brown disk MOVE and softly chime the metal columns.

I was staring at it, and it did it again WHILE I WAS WATCHING.

Baggy watched it too. But she was calm. There was no threatened meowing, or ears pulled back or anything. The "bad vibes" I've had before in negative experiences like this didn't exist and, I've had my fair share of paranormal experiences... it comes with having an aunt who is a freaking spirit-magnet. OTL So, I KNOW that bad vibe when I feel it... But it wasn't here. It never felt threatening or scary... and it was just playing with my wind-chime. So... why be freaked out? My cat wasn't upset, so I won't be either. xD haha. Besides, wind-chimes are to ward off evil spirits. That's part of why I have a gazillion lol.

Bagheera is calm and asleep again..well was, the neighbors just dropped something and made us both jump lol, but... it's all good. So... I'm going to stop rambling now. ha.. I'll keep you all posted if anything else happens.

Her heels went 'clip-clap' against the cobblestone as she rushed by the frozen zombie-like people. She was looking desperately for anything alive, insanely wanting a person to talk to. Overcome with loneliness in the quiet world, she clung to the sound of her running feet as a sign of hope. She was alive. There had to be someone else.

Her leg stretched out and her heel made contact with the ground, sticking between a pair of stones and catching as her other leg rushed forward. The heel twisted, completely throwing off her balance and sending her crashing into the cold ground. A loud yelp escaped her as her body slammed into the path and came to a sliding stop. She didn't bother sitting up; she remained in place as she caught her breath, gulping down buckets of air. Tears raced down her cheeks, dripping off of her nose and chin. Slowly, she placed her hands beneath her and pushed herself up, shakily making her way to an empty bench and flopping onto it. Her head tilted up and she stared at the wind-chimes above, still as motionless as ever.

"Does it hurt?"

Her eyes rolled over to see a girl, pale skinned with a rosy, smooth blush staining her cheeks. Her hair fell in soft curls over her shoulders and her lips, which were curled into a sweet smile, were the color of dying red roses. She asked again, "Is it hurting?"

Eyes going wide, she sat up and nearly shouted, "You're alive?!"

Giggling, she answered, "Yes, I could have said the same for you. But I'm more concerned about that blood in your hair..."

Touched her head, she noticed that there was, in fact, a slight gash on her hairline and that the blood was getting in her bangs. "Oh..."

Digging into her bag, the girl fetched a roll of medical tape and a bit of gauze. Smiling again, she held up the items and said, "Come here and let me see. Can't be too careful!"

Leaning in, she allowed the girl to take care of the wound. Looking down, she saw that her hands were also scraped. The peeled skin began to burn once she noticed it and she winced. "It hurts, right?"

"Yeah," she replied, keeping an eye on her hands. Red seemed to be the prevailing color in this world on the ground. It was different in the trees where the colors were abundant. But down here, there were only red leaves, red lips, red cheeks, red blood.

Suddenly, but gingerly, taking her hands, the girl went about smearing a dull green gel over her palms. It chilled the burning pain as she went dressing the open wounds. "It's small but wouldn't it be annoying to get an infection or something? You can't really overlook these things."

"I'm sorry..." she said, "but can you tell me... why...?"

The girl's eyes softened and she understood that the question was much larger than one word. There were probably a thousand 'whys' in the single one and she could not answer any of them. It was obvious in her apologetic face.

"I'm just as glad to see you as you are me. I'd just about given up... but then I'd just be dead like everyone else, right?"

"You seem very wise."

She laughed, humored by the comment and blushing in modesty. Giggling, she replied, "You know, I always thought the ones who were the most wise were the ones who asked the most 'whys.'"

Furrowing her brows in contemplation, she thought about the philosophy, mulling over it's validity. "That's an interesting way to think of things," she stated, "only furthering my belief that you're a wise person."

"But I'm not," she said. "I am just a messenger, telling you what you already know. I never wonder 'why' things are, I just do what I can with what I have. I don't wonder why you were running or why there are chimes in these trees... I just fix your wounds when you're hurt and I stare at the chimes, hoping for them to sing one day. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

"You're too modest," she grinned, increasingly interested in this new friend. "What's your name?"

There was a moment of complete silence. Not even their breathing made a sound as the seconds passed, trickling away in their melodic fashion. The girl held a look of loss in her pale blue eyes, red lips slightly parted as though wanting to speak, preparing to move and to create a sound that would answer the simple question. But they only hung there, as fruitless as the wind-chimes hanging from the trees. The look in her eyes went from a pleasant one to one of sadness that nearly made her disappear against the forlorn background. But the sparkle that they held quickly returned and her smile attempted to follow but it fell short of the genuine nature it once had.

She patiently and curiously waited for an answer of any kind, wondering if perhaps this girl was not allowed to reveal herself or if she was simply a very closed girl who couldn't allow herself to share her information to people. There was a myriad of possibilities that revolved around trauma and secrets and fear. But as the girl's lip finally twitched, ready to speak, she held her breath and erased all of these thoughts in order to prepare for the answer.

"I don't know."

"You don't...? You don't know?"

Something she began to notice was that the girl never looked away while talking. She was always keeping her eyes focused on her conversational partner and was always very pleasant. It was something that she wished she could do; she was always looking away, especially when a question was hard. The girl continued to impress and impress and impress her.

"I guess I've just forgotten. There was no one to tell it to so... I just forgot!"

"That's so strange..." she said, completely surprised by the unlikelihood that one would forget their own name. "So what do I call you?"

She shrugged politely, her curly, white-blond hair bouncing sweetly on her thin shoulders. "I suppose you could just talk to me. Names are for differentiating people but since there's no one else to talk to, I guess it doesn't really matter!" She laughed alone, leaving her bandaged friend in a bit of a stupor. Sighing, she said, "I guess not even I can agree with that. I'll have to go about remembering my name and I'll let you know the second I do, okay?"

Opening her eyes, she found herself standing in the middle of a cobblestone path, straight and endless. There were benches, there were people, but especially, there were leaves. The only color in this chilly, quiet word were the leaves, departed from their mothers and motionless on the ground. Once bright green, they bled to death, swimming in an ocean of red beneath the bare arms of their former homes. They did not move, didn't rustle. Their bodies weren't even strong enough to dance in the wind, which was also dead. The whisper of the world, the wind, was quiet like the rest of the planet. The people were pale, staring, unmoving. They sat on benches and wouldn't blink, just stare. It was a wonder if they even had the energy to count the stones beneath them.

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the chill and feeling the poison of this stale world begin to take hold. Her legs were paralyzed and her eyes began to lose focus. But it felt good... Not in a pleasurable way but in a way that felt right... She was so tired of living that she didn't want to think anymore. Her thoughts slowly left her, picking up their things and departing from her consciousness. There was no desire here, no worries or cares. Her memories stopped resurfacing and time was nonexistent. This was what she wanted... to stop wanting.

Just as her eyes began to go blind, she gazed upward to view the sky, her only friend. The only thing that didn't change but was always interesting. The thing that let her live on a spinning rock and the thing that protected her from the fire of stars and sang her to sleep at night with gentle darkness... She gazed up to say goodbye but it was already gone. A perfect gray, glazed over by clouds that did not budge. Not a single wink of blue could be discovered beyond the solid shield of gloom. Her spinning rock had stopped moving and so did everything else.

But for some reason, she continued to gaze. It was so though she were looking for something, wanting to notice anything. She suddenly wanted to know how she got here and why everything was so damn gray.

A twinkle caught her eye. From where the light shone, even for that split second, was a mystery but from wherever it originated, it bounced off of a colorful piece of glass and successfully averted her attention. How had she missed it? How had she missed them? The leaves, so colorful and yet so dead, were not the only things speaking in this graveyard. In the trees, the bountiful and bare trees, were wind-chimes. Thousands of them, in all sizes and made of all things.  They were like replacement leaves for the evergray branches, a sea of colors and designs. There were basic ones and complex ones and silly ones and childish ones and broken ones and wooden ones and confusing ones and decorative ones and rusted ones and long ones and short ones and ones that were so high up, so far above the rest and so precarious, that it was a wonder they could be there in the first place.

Her eyes were full to the brim, overflowing with color and wonder. She took a curious step forward, beholding the scene and suddenly was overcome with sorrow. This was wrong. This was nothing short of a nightmare. It was the perfect symbol for sadness in her awestruck eyes. Wind-chimes that could not sing because there was no wind. The world lost its desire to live and no longer blew happily on the fluttery tunes. They hung like thieves at the end of a rope, choked for air and completely motionless.