Irresponsive

The church bells, faintly and fitfully heard, clanged their invitation to an irresponsive town; […]

At dawn some weeks back it had creaked across the plain, and at a point where the scrub curved, the husband had stopped the horse while the woman parted the tilt and waved goodbye to the bent, irresponsive old man and his dog.

I had seen him once in that brown coat; I touched its sleeve, but it was limp and irresponsive to that faint call of memory.