On a desolate plain, stood the Gate and the ever watchful Gatekeeper

On a desolate plain, stood the Gate and the ever watchful Gatekeeper. There was no life on that plain, no grass grew on the dusty-earth and no animals existed there as like they did even in the hottest of deserts. The wind never blew and it never rain, so how could a plain such as that support life? The answer was simple; it didn’t.

And yet I mentioned a Gatekeeper, did I not?

The Gate itself was a metal monstrosity, wider than the Earth and taller than the sky, looking over everything beneath it. The metal was blackened with age, creaking and old but it had been that way since the beginning of time. It had never once been closed and yet it had never once been opened fully, only a small crack could be seen made out and through which something may pass. And on top of the Gate, standing precariously on a metal spike that adorned it, was the Gatekeeper.

The Gatekeeper was neither male nor female, nor was it human. Those who passed underneath it did not look up though, just supposing they had, they would have only seen themselves. Albeit a demonic and scythe-wielding version, but themselves none the less. The Gatekeeper had no face of it’s own because in some ways, it didn’t even exist. And it certainly wasn’t alive.

After all, how could something live – or die for that matter – if it had never been born in the first place? Instead it existed; a single, continuous and unchangeable fact in time. It had never moved, never breathed, never thought. It simply stood there, watching as the creatures passed beneath it through the Gate.

The creatures were not alive either, though they had been once. They were dead now, their hearts halted by injury or by sickness. They were mere shadows of their former selves, the wraiths of animals, plants and humans alike. Akin to the Gatekeeper, they did not move or at least not their body parts; instead they floated, ever closer to the Gate. All of them moving in that same slow, unmotivated way.

The Gatekeeper watched them go, mindlessly and without the plague of human curiosity. If a living creature were to become the Gatekeeper – though this could never actually happen – they would surely wish to glance at what lay behind them. They would want to turn and see what death was truly like, what lay beyond the Gate. But, for this very reason, the Gatekeeper was not alive and therefore was not curious. It didn’t know how to be, nor did it know how to be sad or happy. And it most certainly didn’t know how to love or how to hate.

The Gatekeeper knew nothing, therefore it could see everything as it passed under the Gate.