Guardian Of The Gates

It was an odious sight, the way her mouth twisted to form the words, as if she distorted her lips to spit out a bitter grain. And her eyes shone with secret ugly pleasure like some sort of Medusa…live and just as terrible as the capabilities of the mind that could imagine such a creature – a ragged old bitch with snakes for hair and poison on her breath.

But he did not think of those things when he heard her words. He was not capable. It would be years later, in adulthood, when he’d be able to analyze why she would want to hurt him so. For there, in that moment, with the end of the barbed wire whip tearing a generous gash into his young heart, he was just confused.

Were but for the windows to crash away, and the walls to collapse; were but for the zinc ceiling to be carried away by the wind, and the floor to crumble taking him into death’s crushing arms, he would not care. No hurt could be fathomed after, that would dig him as deep. For there, in that moment, his young heart could not understand why she would want to hurt him so.

A child so young would not yet appreciate how time can harden and embitter the mind; how one damaged hand strikes so easily at another. He did not yet know that such a lesson was one he would have to learn many times. In his innocence he was easy prey. And she called the name with such evil ease that he almost did not receive the shock.

Were but for the windows to crash away, and the walls to collapse; were but for the zinc ceiling to be carried away by the wind, and the floor to crumble taking him into death’s crushing arms, he would not care. No hurt could be fathomed after, that would dig him as deep. For there, in that moment, his young heart could not understand why she would want to hurt him so.

But he heard the words and saw her mouth, saw her still body and her bare feet on the floorboards, saw her forehead and her descending shining eyes; with snakes for hair and poison on her breath. In a dream someone whispered that peace was his reward, it was written and recorded, the testing of his spirit, for he was a keeper of the gates of heaven.

It was an inkling of these things in him that stirred her passions well. It was the allure of wholesomeness that set her on her path. She had a taste for destruction and a vendetta to carry out. It was written. His was the duty to hold and heal her damaged hands, to bring them to his face and kiss them, to show the compassion which she once withheld from him.