# Journey (The Gate)

Author: Zycaneus
Tags: Dream, Short Story

JOURNEY.txt  
Created : 1980  
WC = 1,564  
By : Zycaneus  
  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; JOURNEY (THE GATE)  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Gate!&nbsp;&nbsp; There is a gate before me.&nbsp;&nbsp; On this,&nbsp; the journey of self into self.&nbsp;&nbsp; So high it stands upon the rocky shore. . .&nbsp; the base of that mountain into which the gate now bars passage.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have journeyed a sea of sorts to reach here.&nbsp;&nbsp; A sea comprised not of water, but of the dark mists of nothingness.&nbsp; My feet also speak of rolling grasslands before that, and my mind of empty spaces traversed with much trepidation.&nbsp; &nbsp;  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I gaze up at the doors and ask what lies beyond that portal so bare?&nbsp;&nbsp; Be it the land of the lost, or salvation eternal?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Be it of nether?&nbsp;&nbsp; Of something else entirely?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I know not.  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Tall, smooth, rather plain, red doors stand silent in their magnitude.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Do not dwell on what could be.&nbsp; &nbsp;  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I tell this to myself.   
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Go forward into what is.&nbsp;&nbsp; I know not whether the doors will even open for me.&nbsp;&nbsp; What if&nbsp; they do not?&nbsp;&nbsp; Would I be disappointed?&nbsp;&nbsp; Would it matter?&nbsp;&nbsp; Why does anything matter?  
  

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What, I ask myself, makes the difference in anything I may encounter.&nbsp; What makes some things important and others not?&nbsp; Should I even ask why I am here?&nbsp; Would it matter what the answer may be?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Would it make a difference as to why I should try and seek entrance into what lies beyond those doors of alien metal?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Would I try harder to open them?&nbsp;&nbsp; To desire to see what is beyond with greater fervor?&nbsp; Perhaps if that be the case, then I may ask again do I really wish to know why I am here?&nbsp;&nbsp; For what if I should learn that what lies beyond those doors is something I've wished for all of my life.&nbsp;&nbsp; Desired with all of my heart and soul.&nbsp; Then as I rush forward in frantic anticipation, and those doors choose to bar me from my burning desire as I discover them to be hopelessly locked.&nbsp;&nbsp; An impenetrable barrier to my dreams.&nbsp;&nbsp; Oh what anguish.&nbsp; What loss.&nbsp; What failure I would feel.&nbsp;&nbsp; My hopes may be dashed forever, and I'm left a crumpled, useless, broken thing, because of it.&nbsp;&nbsp; Left with the undeniable knowledge that attaining what lies beyond those doors is forever out of my reach.&nbsp; Perhaps then my whole reason for life itself will be no longer viable.&nbsp; And without a reason for life, of which I'm sure there is.&nbsp;&nbsp; (Else why would there be such a thing as life? ) I would become as listless as my life was meaningless.&nbsp;&nbsp; Oh what crueler fate could be imagined?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To die, not in some heroic battle or act, or even as a helpless victim to be pitied, but because there simply wasn't any reason to go on.&nbsp;&nbsp; Nothing to live for.&nbsp; I look again at the doors, tall and ominous.&nbsp; What a terrible power they hold over me.&nbsp; The power to end my life, by simply not allowing themselves to be opened.&nbsp; I shudder at the thought.&nbsp; I want to hide my face from them, to turn and flee for my life.&nbsp;&nbsp; Confident that they are only doors, they could not follow me.   
  

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I could flee back the way I had come.&nbsp; They would remain here. They could not follow me, or hunt me down like some predator stalking its prey. I could return to where ever it was I had come from.&nbsp; Go back to the life I had led, whatever that may have been.&nbsp;&nbsp; And those doors would remain here forever.&nbsp;&nbsp; Forever...   
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Or would they?  
  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In sudden horror I realized that I would never be free of them.&nbsp; That they could indeed follow me anywhere I went.&nbsp; For they would always be there in my memories.&nbsp; Waiting...&nbsp;&nbsp; How could I leave them?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It wouldn't matter that I&nbsp; go back to what I was, returning to the strife of everyday life, only to know that these doors will always be here.&nbsp; Why should I think that whatever goal I might choose to work for could possibly have any real meaning, if it would ultimately come down to those doors?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Those ever so plain,&nbsp; ever so smooth doors.  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One might imagine&nbsp; that doors that held the power that those did, would be more than just plain, unadorned metal.&nbsp; They hold my very life within their cold enthrall.&nbsp; Could they not even have the decency to appear as the true objects of power that they are?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Instead of just two plain red doors.&nbsp; They could if they so chose, have the look of the heavenly gates themselves.&nbsp; All golden and gleaming.&nbsp; With carved and molded relief so beautiful in their intricacy, and artful styles that it blinded the eyes to look at them.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed the gates of heaven would be so splendorous that it numbed the mind to gaze upon it.&nbsp; They would not be just two plain red doors.  
  

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Two very, red doors.&nbsp; Not all that shiny.&nbsp; Not a high-gloss, high quality paint.&nbsp;&nbsp; More like the dull utility paint used to protect metal from the weather.&nbsp; That base undercoat that is usually the same color as the rust its supposed to guard against.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; They weren't outstandingly red.&nbsp; They were just very, very red.&nbsp; If they were the doors of hell, the gateways to the inferno, perhaps there was a reason for them to be red.&nbsp; Blood red.&nbsp; The color of blood after it had lain in the open air for a while.&nbsp; But were they the gates into eternal damnation?&nbsp; The gates of hell would be more hideous than this.  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; They would be the massive iron doors like that of the darkest&nbsp; dungeon.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; They would be probably be coated in continuously dripping slime.&nbsp; Acidic slime that burned the hand of whoever touched it.&nbsp; Their bolts and framing would glow from the incredible heat on the other side.&nbsp;&nbsp; And they would but barely muffle the sounds of an unimaginable number of souls trapped in eternal torment.&nbsp; Caught in the place of never-ending agony and pain.&nbsp; Their pathetic voices of their combined pain would radiate from the outside of the doors along with the waves of heat and the stench of brimstone.&nbsp;&nbsp; Ah, now that would the gates of hell make.&nbsp;&nbsp; Not... just two very plain, very red, doors.  
  

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Why red?&nbsp; What could it mean?&nbsp; Did it symbolize something?&nbsp; Red was the color of blood.&nbsp; Or sometimes was associated with sex.&nbsp; Red light district and all that.&nbsp; Were they the doors of a secret sex cult?&nbsp; I envision a room full of goddess worshiping women.&nbsp; The doors of the temple are red to represent the time of their menstrual cycles.&nbsp; Yet if these were women in their time of bleed, would they wish to see me?&nbsp;&nbsp; Would I be welcomed here?&nbsp; Or an object of scorn.&nbsp; Perhaps the image of the very reason they had to seek out such a desolate place.&nbsp; That they may be apart for a time from those like me.&nbsp; Yet another reason not to open those doors.  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ah thy doors of many mysteries.&nbsp; What wonders do you keep me from?&nbsp;&nbsp; Or what horrors do you keep from me?&nbsp;&nbsp; I see that I can not tell if the doors open outward or inward.&nbsp; Are they barred from within or without.&nbsp; For barred or locked must they be, else why put doors there at all?&nbsp;&nbsp; A naturally logical deduction from a logical man.&nbsp; I can pride myself on such.&nbsp;&nbsp; Just as I can well now imagine why such doors be made into the side of a mountain as those.&nbsp; For assuredly they hold back some horror.&nbsp; Obviously this mountain is a keep, restraining some nightmare from unleashing its terror upon an unsuspecting world.&nbsp; And to think that I almost had tried to open  
those doors.&nbsp; I, all by myself might have let loose something that could've devastated most of the world before it was stopped.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Contained, and brought back here.&nbsp; I might have been responsible for the loss of innumerable lives.&nbsp; The cause of possibly the collapse of civilization as we know it today.&nbsp; I... Me!  
  

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What power!  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What a great secret to carry with me.&nbsp; What dark esoteric knowledge I now hold.&nbsp; I have seen the doors.&nbsp; I know what lies beyond them.&nbsp; No matter what happens to me now, I have confronted the secret of the doors.&nbsp; I know what waits beyond them.&nbsp; They no longer hold power over me, for I now hold power over them.&nbsp; I&nbsp; shall return to my world.&nbsp; Their dark secret safely inside me.&nbsp; Should I tell my people about the doors?&nbsp; Should I warn them about what waits here?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; No... It'll stay my secret.&nbsp; My knowledge that I alone know of.&nbsp; Such Power I have.&nbsp;&nbsp; To be able to look upon&nbsp; others of my kind and know what lies in wait for them.&nbsp; As they move about oblivious  
to the horror that awaits them beyond those doors.  
  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And so I turn, and walk away.&nbsp; Back in the direction from whence I came.&nbsp; I have won!&nbsp; I&nbsp; have broken the spell the doors had placed upon me.&nbsp; I deduced the horror that they kept at bay.&nbsp;&nbsp; They could not tempt me to open them.&nbsp; I walk back to my people a free man.&nbsp; Behind me, those doors still stand.&nbsp; Those plain,&nbsp; very red doors at the foot of the mountain.&nbsp; Those very silent doors.&nbsp; Still stand, awaiting their next victim.  
  

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Source: https://sofurry.com/view/919307