The Gates of Bone

a fantasy adventure of encountering death

As the grey mists part falteringly, I see a grand imposing infrastructure of glittering white. I blink slowly. Stepping closer, I realise that what initially appeared to be gates of immaculate pearly white are in fact made of a darker substance.

The gates are made from human bones. Bleached skulls, hip-bones, ribs and vertebrae are organised unfeelingly into a magnum opus of architecture. The myriad of flesh-deprived corpses reach ever upward, and despite the craning of my neck I fail to see its top. I smile wryly, at least they were wrong about something.

But suddenly fear penetrates my amusement. I am here. I step forward, with a false demeanour of self-assurance. Two sentries stand on either side of the gate, there grey skin stretches crudely over their thick frames and with vast fleshy pits for eyes they look down on me broodingly. The mouths, stitched up with pious obedience give no clues, tell no tales.

Between the creatures stands a wooden table. Compared to the towering gates behind it, the table and its contents look like accessories for a doll’s house. Carefully set up by nimble fingers and awaiting the destruction of a destructive older brother.  I look at the table. It has on it a thick book, I step closer to examine it.

The tome’s fraying pages are tied together by a faded red ribbon that I recognise as one I lost at the fairground when I was six. The book is simply entitled with my initials. A lilting J resting upon the subsequent G in an imploring exhaustion: desperate to rest after years of standing proper for thank you notes and letters of apology. I wonder what to do next. The place really should have some more instructions. The sentries are no help, they stand immobile in their loyalty.

My hand shakes a little, but I undo the ribbon and let the yellowed pages fall open. The writing inside is of a different world, clusters of dots and swirling loops that perform ecstatic dances of death across the page. However before I can begin to decipher the writing, a set of scales materialise from behind the book. Well, best get this over and done with. I place the book on the right side of the scales, right has always been my lucky side.

The scales teasingly shake, unsure in their judgement. Then with a dreadful finality the right hand side of the scales drops. It is not a heavy drop, the scales do not unfairly categorise me in the same loaded burden as murderers and boys who pull off butterfly wings. No. The slight depression of the scales is a judgement of the vicious words you spoke in the heat of an argument, a white lie you told to avoid meeting with an old friend, the time you forgot to unload the dishwasher. Trivial and mundane sins accumulate to form a small but permanent stain on the brocade of your soul.

A vast sense of disappointment fills me. Not surprise, never surprise. My whole life I have been aware of my inadequacies. Yet without the motivation or sense of my impending mortality to fix them. I avoid the eyes of the sentries, embarrassed to have my dirty linen exposed.

From behind the table, I hear a grinding screech. The gates, fashioned into rounded points like the blunted teeth of some wild circus animal begin to move. A flash of orthopaedic hope. I break out into a half-run. The movements of the gate gradually slow. By the time I reach them, only a brief gap has been left. A tantalising vision of the holy kingdom.

I don’t degrade myself by holding my breath and trying to fit through. Too many times have I tried on an overly-tight dress; felt the momentary triumph followed by panicked wriggling. The guilty knowledge that I have put on something not meant for people like me. No. Instead I try to defiance.

 

‘You!’ I shout angrily, thrusting an accusatory finger upwards.

Righteous indignation reanimates me. How dare He, so high and mighty in his generosity lending out flesh-homes for the steep interest of an eternity of damnation. How dare he, planting the germinating seed for genocide in a baby-dictator’s brain and then blaming it on free will. How dare he, create smiling faces that fold in on themselves and droop as an aesthetic tribute to Decay.

Insolently, I kick a corner of the gates, leaving a black scuff mark. A souvenir from a vile body of sin. I am tired now. It is a struggle to think clearly whether I prefer this or the dead silent afterlife of the atheist, an empty void of nothingness. At least this gives me someone to point a finger at. What to do now? Rooting around in my pockets, I find an apple and sink to the ground.

With a human spine providing a serpentine back-rest and the sweet fruit-flesh in my mouth I think and think, and know and know. 

Author's Note

my first short story- all and any advice very very much appreciated

Reviews

[Livian Grey]

Love it. Really encapsulates the struggle of faith and knowledge inside the human form.