They start you with something bland — like obedience, you swallow because it’s offered, because everyone does.
Then comes a bell, a far-off Sunday kind, stirs the smell of incense. At first, you call it coincidence and move on.
Then: bitterness by degrees — a little fire, a little blame, a little us and them, you don’t even flinch anymore.
Then: the buzzer — hand over heart, and you strike, you don’t even know whose hand that was.
Then: burn, you pour another, and another, until that’s just what we do.
Then comes the thin, slippery pitch — the signal: “Good night,” and the world going dark.