The Gate

The blanched white gate testified to Mother Wind’s foul mood, its great sodden weight allowing only a soft thud each time it contacted the sculptured fence post. In rhythm with each gust, it offered a muted tympanic response commensurate with its mood. Gravity and the ravages of time pulled at the rusted hinges, their erstwhile galvanizing now reduced to orange iron with loosened bolts, threatening to give up the ghost all altogether, offering to allow passage to anyone wishing to enter—or exit. Once it might have resisted, once it could have confounded all but the most stalwart, but now it seemed content to accept its lot along with that of its neighbor structures, for nothing remained to protect. She would exact her revenge, along with her Sisters, Rain and Snow; She would bring her children home to be prepared for their re-birth. But first, She would let them stand as reminders to all who would attempt their own metamorphoses with elements they leased from Her. They would pay dearly for their folly, in ways they could never understand. The blanched white gate swung both ways until it would be forever stopped.