The Gatekeeper

[I’m sure this could do with some cleaning up, but whether I’ll feel like that later or not, here it is for now.]

 There was a manor house, the owner, or let’s say lord, of which for now was elsewhere, and guarding the gates to all this was a gatekeeper, whose job of course was to control who got to come in and out - visitors, deliveries, whoever. Along with those who came and were allowed in were quite a few more who came to the gates but were turned away. They only wanted to look around, they wouldn’t stay long  . . . it didn’t matter, they weren’t coming in.

 But they were some annoying and persistent ones who kept turning up, looking to be let in, and unfortunately the gatekeeper, maybe to help pass the time, began to get complacent and even let himself be drawn into conversations with these undesirables lingering at the gates. And in this deepening lack of vigilance and losing the true sense of being a gatekeeper, he one day even dozed off after, fool that he was now himself becoming, he even went so far as to share a drink with these layabouts, and so now, various of these fools climbed the unwatched gates, opened them now from the inside, and they all headed on up the driveway and entered the house. Maybe they had even drugged the gatekeeper’s drink, I don’t know, but on he slept and, however word got out, soon along came worse types, more outright degenerates, and a little later in their turn came worse ones again, who were perhaps simply outright wicked. It was maybe something of an ascending hierarchy that had come along and got in - fools and layabouts, degenerates and the wicked.

And finally when the gatekeeper awoke and came to his senses and saw the opened gates, people wandering up and down the drive, and after rushing up to the house and seeing the bedlam inside, he pleaded and roared at them to leave, got laughed at and fled back in despair to the gates, which to be honest he didn’t now know if they should be kept open or closed. 

His position he realised was hopeless, he was powerless to sort it out himself, and eventually after all kinds of inner tortures he realised he had to call the lord of the manor, admit to the state of affairs and depend on his help if possible to set things right - and which is exactly what transpired. The lord was far more calm and understanding than the gatekeeper had any right to expect, some of his people came along, and the run was put on the undesirables, however frightening they may have appeared, and everything cleared up and restored to order.

 The gatekeeper ashamed and humbled, to to something of his surprise he didn’t lose his role, he wasn’t even particularly talked and given out to, but instead it seems he was trusted to have a deepened sense of his role as gatekeeper to the house and grounds, and how of course vigilance was the key to things.

Incidentally, just to add, the gatekeeper heard word of something very similar happening to another manor house not far away, but in this case the gatekeeper had it seemed, rather than try to rectify the quickly developing madness, joined in with the invaders, and when things were eventually sorted in very like manner to the first situation, there he was found, at one with them, debauched in body and mind, and wherever they ended up, presumably he ended up there too.