In Elegosi, time ruled like a stubborn king. It ticked inside glass towers, counted minutes with LED eyes, demanded sweat from brows and loyalty from bones. People rose and slept according to its whip. They saluted deadlines more than ancestors.
But time had forgotten something: not everyone bowed to clocks.
Some listened instead to bells.
Not the digital tones of phones or alarms.
But the deep, brass resonance of truth.
Odogwu found the bell buried beneath the Oru archives. Zuru discovered it while searching for lost blueprints.
It was wrapped in cloth older than the country. Etched with strange markings.
There was no rope. No clapper inside.
Yet it hummed, softly, like a mountain remembering thunder.
Maazi Kelechi inspected it and shook his head.
"This is not a church bell. This is a covenant bell."
"What's that?" Zuru asked.
Kelechi's eyes darkened. "A bell that does not call you to service. It calls you to sense. If it rings, it means time is lying."
For weeks, it sat untouched.
Until one morning, during a press conference, as Odogwu spoke about launching Africa's first regenerative hospitality chain across four regions—from Okrika to Zambwa—the bell rang.
Loud. Clear. Trembling with knowing.
The hall froze.
People stared.
Phones stopped recording. Reporters dropped pens.
Even Odogwu blinked.
He turned toward the sound and said, simply: "It's time."
That evening, Elegosi cracked.
Not from fire or war.
But from awareness.
People who once measured life in hours began asking older questions:
Why do we work like machines when our hearts beat like drums?Who benefits when we forget how to rest?What does it mean to live, not just exist?
In markets, vendors closed early to walk barefoot under moonlight.
In schools, teachers began teaching proverbs alongside algebra.
And in offices—especially Omeuzu's sleek headquarters—executives squirmed.
Because the people were waking up.
And a man they once discarded had become their bell ringer.
Odogwu, in a televised broadcast, addressed the nation:
"When they dropped me, I thought time had ended. But I was wrong. The clock only rules those who forget they carry their own seasons.
"That bell ringing was not noise. It was memory. A reminder that we do not move by minutes alone—we move by meaning."
A reporter asked, "So what do you propose, Mr. Odogwu?"
He smiled.
"I propose we break the clock."
It started symbolically.
Every Oru branch removed wall clocks.
In their place, they hung wooden carvings of sunflowers, tortoises, and rivers.
Symbols of patience, endurance, and flow.
They changed job schedules to honor body rhythms.
Work began with storytelling, not briefings.
Lunch was taken under trees, not at desks.
And every Friday, they rang the Bell of Becoming.
It echoed through Elegosi.
And every time it rang, someone remembered who they really were.
Of course, not all rejoiced.
In parliament, some called Odogwu a seditionist.
In corporate circles, he was labeled "a disruptive myth."
But none could deny the effect.
Omeuzu's profits dropped 11% in one quarter.
People left jobs not because they were jobless, but because they were joyless.
And everywhere the bell rang, lives pivoted.
A nurse became a dancer.
A taxi driver launched a poetry club.
A widow started teaching children how to dream again.
One night, Odogwu visited Amaedukwu.
Mama Oyidiya, now slow but sharp, asked, "Nwam, is it true you want to end time?"
He laughed softly. "No Mama. I just want people to remember that time is their servant, not their master."
She nodded. "Then you are not breaking the clock. You are just waking the soul."
On his way back to Elegosi, he walked through the forest path alone.
The bell in his satchel pulsed like a heart.
He paused.
Set it down.
And whispered, "Let the world remember."
It rang.
This time, not with sound—but with silence so deep that owls stopped hooting and fireflies held their light.
Even the stars blinked twice.
Because something had shifted.
A new rhythm was born.
And from that day onward, across homes, shops, and schools, people began keeping two times:
The Clock's Time—what the world expects.The Soul's Time—what they actually needed.
And in places where those two could not agree, they chose the soul.
Because as Orie once told his son:
"A man who owns a bell must never again pretend to be deaf."