The Catholic Writers Guild

The Watchers, Gatekeepers and the Dove

If you are an adult who likes children’s science fiction, like me, you will sometimes catch yourself creating your fantastical tale. I have made a couple, and the super side is that I discover the storylines relating to real-time.

Let me share The Watchers, Gatekeepers and the Dove with you.

It is set in a kingdom of apes who dwell in the valley of a mountain city. The apes live beyond the mountain slopes of Sophia. The route to their kingdom is a paved, breezy highway, adorned with trees. Lush frangipanis in full bloom with yellow flowers line the highway, their scents caressing every willing nostril. Bananas, with their inviting, ripened, yellow bunches, dotted with the green of unripened ones, bunch together alternately creating an uneven canopy between the frangipani. Monkeys, clutching their babies, jump off the frangipani onto the bananas, grabbing, peeling, eating, and discarding half-eaten ones. Their parade-like movements are something to behold. They had one task – to watch the highway and notify the baboons, who manned the many gates, of any passerby long before they arrived there.

The spotless white dove – a regular visitor to the territory – hovered high above the road, swinging back and forth. The monkeys squeaked furiously at the sight of her. The baboons too growled when she swung low near any of the gates.  The dove would neither join in the banana feast nor perch on the frangipani to take a rest.

This morning, no passerby yet, and the dove’s presence raised the anxiety of the watchers and the gatekeepers. Then the monkeys whistled, signaling the baboons, and each baboon stood straight as sentries behind their gates. The automatic gates opened as soon as the shadow of a passerby touched it. Pigs – five of them – ran swiftly down the road past the first gate.

Each gate had an inscription in bold letters. Gate one: SELFISHNESS. The pigs smiled at the two baboons, who responded with a silent salute. Soon the pigs reached the second gate – SLOTHFULNESS. Again, they ran past the gate and onto the third.

The gatekeepers danced gleefully, and the watchers cheered them, pretending it was a race. The dove glided above. Finally the pigs reached the gate of BLOOD, the tenth. Like roasted skin, the smell of the sacrificial blood pricked their nostrils, and they began to choke. Their leader turned round as they retraced their steps. The dove hovered back and forth near them, urging them on. The watchers were agitated and signaled the gatekeepers with clicking sounds.

The pigs raced to the next gate and, finding it shut, they rolled on the ground, screeching. The gatekeepers watched unperturbed.

“Open the gate for us please. We are choking!”

“The gate opens of its accord. It is not in our power to open it.”

“Please consider my children; they need a cool muddy place to cool off now, or they will die.”

“Die? No, you lie. On this side of existence, there’s neither death nor life.”

“Please pity us!”

“The highway is one-way coded. It cannot open on this side.”

The pigs screeching louder.

Soon some goats approached, distracting the gatekeepers. The dove descended, perching on each pig, revealing the code.

As soon as the goats passed, the pigs yelled:

“We have the ‘power’ and ‘authority’! Open ye gates!”

The gatekeepers fainted as with a big bang, the gates lifted and the pigs sprinted off. The dove urging,

“Run! Run and never look back!”

They passed all the gates and onto the road to the mountain city. Behind they could hear the monkeys shrieking and the baboons stumping in terrible agony.

“Brace yourselves for the uphill journey,” said the dove, and flew eastward.

As the pigs stepped on the mountain path, a song of victory erupted from the top of the mountain. Like a magnet, the song pulled the pigs up the hill. Looking down from the top towards the downside where they escaped, they saw a huge pit of fire, with some pigs roasting by it.

“There goes us, if not for grace,” they chorused.

Copyright – Antoinette Opara, 2022