[Intro]
[Instrumentation: chapel organ states the three-note monitor motif before floor toms enter]

Three seventeen, the ceiling burns,
The lift arrives, the lock-light turns.
My coffee shakes inside its shell—
Welcome to the hour between bells.

[Verse 1]
The automatic doorway sighs,
A tired mouth with glassy eyes.
Rain runs silver down the pane,
Then gathers black beneath the frame.
My badge says Mara, black on white,
It does not say I slept last night.
I pin it straight against my chest,
A little name denied its rest.

[Pre-Chorus]
Blue gloves snap against my skin,
The doors breathe out, the calls begin.
One empty chair, six beds behind—
We borrow bodies, minutes, time.

[Chorus]
This is the hour between bells,
Where mercy works and no one tells.
Where heaven smells of bleach and steam,
And saints wear shoes with broken seams.
This is the hour between bells—
We hold the hands the darkness held.

[Verse 2]
June reads the board and counts to ten,
Then wipes it clean and counts again.
Two nurses short, one porter gone,
Three new admissions rolling on.
A woman coughs behind a screen,
A child asks what the numbers mean.
The monitor replies in threes,
A metal prayer no god can ease.

[Pre-Chorus]
The pager bites, the red lights spin,
A second ambulance comes in.
I taste the coffee, cold and thin—
The doors breathe out, the calls begin.

[Chorus]
This is the hour between bells,
Where mercy works and no one tells.
Where heaven smells of bleach and steam,
And saints wear shoes with broken seams.
This is the hour between bells—
We hold the hands the darkness held.

[Instrumental Break]
[Instrumentation: Drop-C guitars repeat the organ motif while toms imitate three monitor pulses]

[Bridge]
If holiness is being seen,
There is no holy thing here clean.
It lives beneath a plastic gown,
In lifting someone gently down.

[Second Bridge]
It lives in names pronounced with care,
In staying when no help is there.
No golden glass, no marble floors—
Just hands that do not shut the doors.

[Build-up]
The east wing calls, the west wing cries,
The elevator climbs and sighs.
My name swings loose beneath the light—
Mara, present. Mara, night.

[Final Chorus]
This is the hour between bells,
Where every room has wounds to tell.
Where heaven wears a paper mask,
And no one dares to count the cost.
This is the hour between bells—
Who keeps the hands that catch the falls?

[Outro]
[Instrumentation: organ remains alone as the three-note motif becomes a monitor pulse]

Three seventeen. The night begins.
I wash my hands. I walk back in.
