Journey (The Gate)
JOURNEY.txt Created : 1980 WC = 1,564 By : Zycaneus
JOURNEY (THE GATE)
Gate! There is a gate before me. On this, the journey of self into self. So high it stands upon the rocky shore. . . the base of that mountain into which the gate now bars passage. I have journeyed a sea of sorts to reach here. A sea comprised not of water, but of the dark mists of nothingness. My feet also speak of rolling grasslands before that, and my mind of empty spaces traversed with much trepidation.
I gaze up at the doors and ask what lies beyond that portal so bare? Be it the land of the lost, or salvation eternal? Be it of nether? Of something else entirely? I know not.
Tall, smooth, rather plain, red doors stand silent in their magnitude. Do not dwell on what could be.
I tell this to myself.
Go forward into what is. I know not whether the doors will even open for me. What if they do not? Would I be disappointed? Would it matter? Why does anything matter?
What, I ask myself, makes the difference in anything I may encounter. What makes some things important and others not? Should I even ask why I am here? Would it matter what the answer may be? Would it make a difference as to why I should try and seek entrance into what lies beyond those doors of alien metal? Would I try harder to open them? To desire to see what is beyond with greater fervor? Perhaps if that be the case, then I may ask again do I really wish to know why I am here? For what if I should learn that what lies beyond those doors is something I've wished for all of my life. Desired with all of my heart and soul. 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. An impenetrable barrier to my dreams. Oh what anguish. What loss. What failure I would feel. My hopes may be dashed forever, and I'm left a crumpled, useless, broken thing, because of it. Left with the undeniable knowledge that attaining what lies beyond those doors is forever out of my reach. Perhaps then my whole reason for life itself will be no longer viable. And without a reason for life, of which I'm sure there is. (Else why would there be such a thing as life? ) I would become as listless as my life was meaningless. Oh what crueler fate could be imagined? 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. Nothing to live for. I look again at the doors, tall and ominous. What a terrible power they hold over me. The power to end my life, by simply not allowing themselves to be opened. I shudder at the thought. I want to hide my face from them, to turn and flee for my life. Confident that they are only doors, they could not follow me.
I could flee back the way I had come. 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. Go back to the life I had led, whatever that may have been. And those doors would remain here forever. Forever...
Or would they?
In sudden horror I realized that I would never be free of them. That they could indeed follow me anywhere I went. For they would always be there in my memories. Waiting... How could I leave them? It wouldn't matter that I go back to what I was, returning to the strife of everyday life, only to know that these doors will always be here. 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? Those ever so plain, ever so smooth doors.
One might imagine that doors that held the power that those did, would be more than just plain, unadorned metal. They hold my very life within their cold enthrall. Could they not even have the decency to appear as the true objects of power that they are? Instead of just two plain red doors. They could if they so chose, have the look of the heavenly gates themselves. All golden and gleaming. With carved and molded relief so beautiful in their intricacy, and artful styles that it blinded the eyes to look at them. Indeed the gates of heaven would be so splendorous that it numbed the mind to gaze upon it. They would not be just two plain red doors.
Two very, red doors. Not all that shiny. Not a high-gloss, high quality paint. More like the dull utility paint used to protect metal from the weather. That base undercoat that is usually the same color as the rust its supposed to guard against. They weren't outstandingly red. They were just very, very red. If they were the doors of hell, the gateways to the inferno, perhaps there was a reason for them to be red. Blood red. The color of blood after it had lain in the open air for a while. But were they the gates into eternal damnation? The gates of hell would be more hideous than this.
They would be the massive iron doors like that of the darkest dungeon. They would be probably be coated in continuously dripping slime. Acidic slime that burned the hand of whoever touched it. Their bolts and framing would glow from the incredible heat on the other side. And they would but barely muffle the sounds of an unimaginable number of souls trapped in eternal torment. Caught in the place of never-ending agony and pain. 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. Ah, now that would the gates of hell make. Not... just two very plain, very red, doors.
Why red? What could it mean? Did it symbolize something? Red was the color of blood. Or sometimes was associated with sex. Red light district and all that. Were they the doors of a secret sex cult? I envision a room full of goddess worshiping women. The doors of the temple are red to represent the time of their menstrual cycles. Yet if these were women in their time of bleed, would they wish to see me? Would I be welcomed here? Or an object of scorn. Perhaps the image of the very reason they had to seek out such a desolate place. That they may be apart for a time from those like me. Yet another reason not to open those doors.
Ah thy doors of many mysteries. What wonders do you keep me from? Or what horrors do you keep from me? I see that I can not tell if the doors open outward or inward. Are they barred from within or without. For barred or locked must they be, else why put doors there at all? A naturally logical deduction from a logical man. I can pride myself on such. Just as I can well now imagine why such doors be made into the side of a mountain as those. For assuredly they hold back some horror. Obviously this mountain is a keep, restraining some nightmare from unleashing its terror upon an unsuspecting world. And to think that I almost had tried to open those doors. I, all by myself might have let loose something that could've devastated most of the world before it was stopped. Contained, and brought back here. I might have been responsible for the loss of innumerable lives. The cause of possibly the collapse of civilization as we know it today. I... Me!
What power!
What a great secret to carry with me. What dark esoteric knowledge I now hold. I have seen the doors. I know what lies beyond them. No matter what happens to me now, I have confronted the secret of the doors. I know what waits beyond them. They no longer hold power over me, for I now hold power over them. I shall return to my world. Their dark secret safely inside me. Should I tell my people about the doors? Should I warn them about what waits here? No... It'll stay my secret. My knowledge that I alone know of. Such Power I have. To be able to look upon others of my kind and know what lies in wait for them. As they move about oblivious to the horror that awaits them beyond those doors.
And so I turn, and walk away. Back in the direction from whence I came. I have won! I have broken the spell the doors had placed upon me. I deduced the horror that they kept at bay. They could not tempt me to open them. I walk back to my people a free man. Behind me, those doors still stand. Those plain, very red doors at the foot of the mountain. Those very silent doors. Still stand, awaiting their next victim.