Shadow Behind the Gate

“The mouth above the gate does not speak. It remembers.”

There is a face above the gate.
Its teeth are wide.
Its eyes are hollow.
Its mouth has never closed.

No one remembers when it was carved—
only that it waits.

Some call it Kala, the Eater of Time.
Some call it Guardian.
The oldest monks speak no name at all.
They pass beneath with bowed heads and sealed lips,
for to name the face
is to summon the silence that follows.

But once—
before gates were stone,
before lintels bore that devouring grin—
the face was not a carving.
It was a hunger.
And that hunger had a name
only the earth now remembers.

—

They say there was once a gate without guardians.
No lion. No nāga.
No flame-eyed god crouched in the cornice.

Only wind.
Only footprints.
Only the soft passing of spirits.

In those early days,
the people came with songs and quiet offerings.
They lit rice-lanterns.
They laid their sorrows beneath banyan leaves.
The temple was young.
The world still being sung into shape.
Stone had not yet remembered death.

But something waited on the other side—
not cruel,
not kind—
only vast.

One day, a child came to the gate.
He had wandered far from his village,
drawn by the scent of jasmine and smoke.

The elders had warned him:
Do not pass the gate unless you are ready
to leave something behind.

But children do not know what they carry.
He stepped beneath the arch
and vanished into the hush.

The priests found only his shadow—
pressed like a leaf into the stone.
It had teeth.
And it was smiling.

—

The people wept.
The priests fasted.
The mountain gave no answer.

Then came the dream.
The temple itself whispered:

Give it a face,
or it will take yours.

So they carved the mouth.
They did not know what eyes it should wear—
so they hollowed them.
They did not know what name it should bear—
so they gave it none.

They carved it from memory, not from stone:
a memory of hunger,
a mouth that watches,
a silence that listens for footsteps.

When it was finished,
they sealed the gate with an offering—
blood,
breath,
and a bell that would never ring.

—

Now, the face watches.
Every time you pass beneath it,
it counts what you carry.
Every time you linger,
it leans closer.

Those who cross with pride—
who enter with greed—
find their dreams chewed hollow.
Not by punishment.
By remembrance.

For the face does not guard the temple.
It guards the threshold.

It asks,
not with words
but with teeth:

Have you forgotten
what you came to lose?

—

Once, long ago,
a dancer brought no offering.
No coin.
No candle.
No name.

She bowed beneath the gate,
tears woven in her hair,
and sang a single note—
a note no one had ever heard,
though every being somehow remembered.

The mouth above the gate did not move.
But the wind stilled.
The birds fell silent.
And for one sacred moment,
the stone seemed to close its eyes.

—

Now, in ruins thick with roots,
the face remains.
It does not speak.
It does not blink.

Yet some say it breathes
when no one is looking.
And some say it waits for you.

Because every threshold remembers.
And behind every gate,
there is a shadow.

—

Walk slowly.
Bow lightly.
And if the mouth seems to smile—
do not answer.