The Lottery Gates

Photograph El Capra

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by Peter Cowlam

The Transmutation

Si came down from the fields, where he’d been working, for the day was nearly departed. The sun had sunk towards the mountains, while the mingling hues of evening had faded in a wash of summer twilight. It was a pleasant, tranquil hour. As was his habit at this time, Si went home through the tiny community gardens.

He came to the old path he had often used as a child, and with it meandered down where there were miniature trees, and a stream. Here, on every other evening, he had paused reflectively, jumped across, and re-joined the path in its climb through the hillside shrubs towards home. But Si, so long had it been his wish, turned to the left and began to follow the stream, east to west.

‘In good time, you will see the Lottery Gates.’

The words echoed. They had been spoken by a greying old man of the roadside, who had told him that dreams were realties, realities dreams. The rest was all riddle, for cannot the trickling stream also become a mighty river, and the river reach the sea?

‘Make sure your vessel’s well-equipped.’

Si hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder. On a crest he could see the wooden gate that opened onto the road home. He wondered. Then he looked in the direction of the stream, as it drifted to greater distances before him – and he wondered. The old man’s words still echoed, quietly.

The sun sank down behind the great mountain. The last of the daylight fled. Si decided to venture no farther.

The landowner’s son had also been out walking, and was making his way home. He stopped at the gate and gazed into the gardens. He saw Si coming towards him. They had been friends.

‘Months go by,’ he said, ‘and I see nothing of you. You no longer call.’

‘I am just too tired,’ said Si. When work was over, all Si wanted to do was rest. He walked on.

His one-time friend called after him, but he did not break his stride. He returned to his tiny abode, where he made a simple supper. His neighbour was out back, smoking a cigar, staring at the heavens. The stars had begun to appear – there was promise in them – as now he thought there were signs of less troubled times ahead.

Si would have welcomed the news but did not believe in portents. He was too much burdened by the encumbrances of home to commit his destiny to remote unknowns. His fascination was though with the Lottery Gates and the bower he’d heard of there, reputed to have the power to change the course of anyone’s life. He knew no one who had been there, though many were adamant the gates were the one dependable opening into better things. Si hoped one day he would find out for himself.

After supper he went out back, wanting to talk to his neighbour. But there were too many thoughtful silences, and the atmosphere was gloomy. He was unhappy. His disillusion permeated everything, despite the other’s assertion that the heavens were propitious. Si was not so certain of the stars, and of the heavens. What was the vastness beyond and its numerous stars to him?

The other shook his head and said no more.

Si set off for work the following morning before the sun had risen. As was usual, on his way to the fields he stopped when he met the greying old man sitting at the roadside.

‘What can you tell me today?’ asked Si.

There was a pause while the old man thought. ‘The landowner’s son,’ he said, ‘says he saw you following the stream.’

‘What of it? I went no further than the gardens. It got dark.’

‘Yes, but you were heading west.’

‘Has the landowner’s son got nothing better to do than spy?’

‘All I say is be careful.’

‘Thank you. Now I have to work. I’m late.’ So saying, Si made to walk on.

‘There is no work for you in the fields today.’

‘How so?’ Again, he made to walk on.

‘Today is not the same.’

‘How can that be?’

‘You’ll find out. First you must complete that journey west.’

Si shrugged and walked on through the gardens, with its miniature trees. At the stream he stopped, and thought. He walked on nervously, paused again and glanced back to the gate, where there were two figures, waving – the old man and the landowner’s son. That paired gesture seemed to make his mind up for him. He turned, and hurried on, and glancing back again could see them no longer.

Soon his pace slackened, as gradually the gardens altered. Sometimes, it was difficult to follow the stream. Then the gardens petered out, and there were thorns, a wilderness. Hazards only increased once the stream had narrowed to a trickle. He beat his way through the bushes, and patiently sought the stream whenever it disappeared beneath ground. He persisted.

In due course he grew tired, and his patience wore thin. The journey had left him with bruises and aching limbs. So daunting was it, with the terrain a constant challenge, that he found himself longing for the fields and the work he knew, more so when there were swamps, a quarry, a dustbowl, finally more wilderness.

He was lost, and exhausted, and had little hope of finding the stream, which had vanished. Unwilling to go farther, he sat down, and buried his head in his hands. After a time, on daring to look up, his troubles and anguish did not diminish. The dilemma worsened. The sky grew dark. Night had descended. There was little he could see of the strange world around him. By now his neighbour might be missing him, as Si recalled the smell of tobacco from out back, and those neighbourly predictions, all written in the stars.

Animals native to these parts had sensed his presence. As Si listened, their moans and cries grew louder, nearer. Their footfalls too. His first thought was to light a fire, but had no means. The truth was he had come ill-prepared in every way. He wondered that the greying old man had not advised him so.

He re-evaluated much in his past that had formed his attitudes, and now made judgements a little less harsh than before. That the landowner was wealthy, with possessions, and power no longer disturbed him, even if true that he paid his labourers so little, which of course included himself. How odd it now seemed that Si had chosen to lose himself in hostile territory as an answer to that injustice. He thought too of the landowner’s son, and again was less damning of him. He was lazy undoubtedly, with nothing to do with his days but ride, shoot or swim. Soon enough he would take his father’s place, and with that crease his brows in a constant worry over floods, droughts, and the fluctuating price of grain. So, concluded Si, what was the point of rebellion if all that amounted to was an unanswered cry in the wilderness?’

The life around him pressed closer as Si plunged deeper in meditation. Somewhere the stream curled away through the darkness and undergrowth. Unknown to him, and far away, behind the famous Lottery Gates, the keeper was strolling in the gardens, enjoying the sun.

Unbidden, there emerged from the woodland behind Si the weirdest-looking man, boyish in physique but reptilian in appearance, who quickly apologised for himself—

‘Do not be alarmed.’ He was friend, not foe.

Si, mesmerised by the depth of tone in the creature’s voice, scanned around but saw no one. There were only the vague mysterious shapes of a jungle in darkness.

‘I am here,’ the creature said.

Si turned again and in the light of the lantern the other held saw how little prepared he had been for the part-boy, part-man, part-reptile. He repressed a gasp of horror. The creature sat down some way apart from him, and explained that since the hour of his transmutation he had never again experienced the warmth of human kindness. Strangers had laughed, jeered, finger-pointed, making him feel the monster they said he was.

‘Well, hello then. I am Si.’

‘I – I have no name.’

‘Well I shall call you Lanternman.’ Lanternman, who had lit Si’s path.

The Lanternman had not always looked so hideous, or so his story ran. Si listened patiently, with not so much fear now of the night moans echoing around them. He ignored them, in doing so failing to notice those animal cries were like laughter, more emphatically so since the Lanterman’s appearance. The Lanternman had once lived in civilised society, working for merchants and traders, where he soon understood that those he was working with were so much cleverer, in a peasant sort of way, than he was. He had to acknowledge their natural expertise in matters of trade, when over the course of years they prospered while he barely won a promotion.

Even then, he might have been nameless, for people never remembered him.

He was approaching middle-life when he no longer accepted these conditions. He had expected, as a senior, politeness, respect. But that didn’t happen. He remained a nobody, with the difference now that he understood what feelings of inferiority meant. He requested, and was granted, an interview with someone higher up.

‘I can spare you,’ he said, ‘five minutes.’

The unhappy subordinate shifted uneasily, and in overwhelming embarrassment could not muster the courage to speak. He was ashamed.

‘I haven’t got all day,’ his boss snapped.

‘Well, you see, the problem is—’

‘The problem is what? Spit it out.’

‘It’s that I’m, I’m – inferior. Incompetent.’ His face turned to such a crimson hue, and he squirmed so uncomfortably that the other was bound to agree.

‘Well, glad you’ve got it off your chest. That’s the first step to redemption. Now, may I suggest, we both get back to work. Time, as we say, is money.’

This did not seem to the Lanternman – who felt only more inferior – a satisfactory response. Instead of having received the help he thought was his due, he slid further into his insecurities, a situation that couldn’t be allowed to persist. Eventually he did get help. He was told there were places overseas where there were programmes and institutions that offered training to those struggling in the world of trade. He would have to save, and pay his own way of course.

‘We can only make the recommendation. We do not have the authority to send you.’

‘By whose authority can I go?’

‘Apply, and see who accepts you.’

‘Oh no, I’m too inferior for that.’

That said it all really, but happily a suitable course was found and he paid his application fee. After a few days he received forms and questionnaires to fill in, and was shown the box where he made his personal statement, headed in block capitals. He did not object. Indeed the method suited him, for he, lowly and of no account, unable to voice his problems in the presence of great and clever men, felt much better doing so in writing, on an official form designed for that purpose.

Months went by, and the forms continued to reach him – until, one day, he received a letter. He was free to go, it told him. Assessment had been made, and the verdict was he was ready for training. For the sake of economy, he must make his own arrangements for the journey. The letter was signed in haste, but the news was positive.

Not having much money, he couldn’t afford the passage. He would either have to walk, or give up the idea. It was a question he debated with himself for an unexpectedly long time, which he did not resolve entirely alone. He noticed his employers beginning to frown, with more severity the longer he remained. The situation became acutely uncomfortable, and reached the point where he must throw over everything in his old life. Even at the expense of a long walk.

On his journeys into foreign lands he followed the laws and customs as required. He showed his papers at frontiers. He offered no resistance when uniformed officials searched his clothes and baggage. He explained to a thousand suspicious inquirers the object of his journey. Once he spent a night in jail while confirmation of his identity was obtained.

The whole venture tired him greatly, and to top it all was hampered by a limited grasp of geography. He had only the vaguest idea of the whereabouts of the country he was aiming for. Maps he had never learned to read properly, and those he carried were largely an enigma. It was therefore more by luck than anything that he reached the right place, a small thriving town. He rejoiced, but later despaired. The institution he’d applied to was nowhere to be found. None that he asked could direct him there. He was helpless.

He cheered a little when he chanced to find a small but delicately tended garden, open to the public. His heart swelled with simple pleasure when he strolled among its miniature trees, where summer sunlight danced on the leaves. In a valley was a glittering stream. He put aside his cares, and happily sauntered along, as he followed the course of the stream. But gradually, and too late to do anything about it, these distractions turned to anguish. He was lost. Perhaps his journey would never end.

At length he came to a wilderness, where he wandered. Then his fortunes changed again, when he stumbled on a much more exquisite garden than the one that had lured him in. It had extensive lawns, terraces, a folly, cypresses, little clear pools, and a bank of white, blue and purple agapanthus.

But, at the garden’s Lottery Gates, the keeper did not share his mood. She had the burden of responsibility, and the strain told. She was unwell, she said, and her patience wasn’t endless. It was unlikely she’d concern herself with him in any way. She asked rather off-handed why he had come. He approached, but on reaching the gates, and peering through, could not see her. He must, he thought, have imagined the voice, but he did not turn away. He had hope in his heart, and he spoke—

‘I have come,’ he said, ‘to acquire competence and superiority.’

This the keeper already knew, for that was the aspiration of everyone who consulted her. She asked him to say how he would use these acquisitions.

The traveller thought for a moment. Then it occurred to him that perhaps he had reached his destination after all, and that this was his training, and that to gain access he must answer preliminary questions. He hoped his answers were right.

‘Well,’ he began, ‘I would like to be skilled in matters of trade and commerce, able to make money for my employers, and have plenty of people beneath me to order around. And of course, I must make money for myself, so that I don’t have to walk everywhere.’

The keeper was enraged. How could a man of such miserable ambition be so rash as to solicit her? There and then she transmuted him, by what powers none could say, turning him into a man-child of reptilian appearance. There were twinges, but it was not until he peered into a still, glassy pool that he saw the extent of changes to his person.

Now there was so much more to be lamented. Not only was he psychologically damaged, but now physically too. Why he had been punished in this way he could not fathom. In hopeless self-pity, he sat and wept and moaned at what tragedy had been added to his lot. It could not be more grotesque. At least he still had his reason, and with that as slim comfort he told himself that if there was a power on earth able to inflict such injury, then the same power must be able to break the spell. He thought he would visit the Lottery Gates again.

He was now at his lowest ebb, but overwhelmed by the desire to have his life restored. Trembling, he stood at the Lottery Gates a second time, hardly noticing a lantern nearby. It seemed unimportant. The all-knowing keeper had been waiting, her anger having subsided. She prompted him, gently, to speak.

He said he had never wanted much: a little respect from others; reasonable subsistence for reasonable labour; an occasional sign from his superiors, whom he wished to serve faithfully. His severest handicap, he explained, had always been acute inferiority. In an attempt to overcome it, he had embarked on a long journey, in search of the kind of mentoring that would help. Only by mistake had he come this way. He did not wish to be a nuisance, he added, but would be grateful of a return to his former look.

In her omniscience, of course, the keeper did not require these explanations. But she was touched.

‘What you are asking for,’ she said, ‘requires effort.’

‘What must I do?’

She drew attention to the lantern, and told him to take it up. ‘The wilderness. Travellers are infrequent. But I do not deny them a light and a guide. Go. Bring them to me. But before that, find the first gardener and bring him here.’

Si had listened to the tale in great consternation. The keeper, he now understood, was far from certain to dispense favours. He looked strangely at the lantern-bearer, and wondered if it might be wiser to return home to work in the fields, and forget about the Lottery Gates. The Lanternman seemed to know his thoughts. Speaking apologetically, he told Si he had been roaming for so long in the wilderness that he’d forgotten the pathways out. If Si wished to leave, he must find his own way. Worse than that, the wilderness was changing all the time, and he was unsure if he could even find the Lottery Gates again.

Si pondered, for the decision was not easy. ‘It must all have something to do with this first gardener,’ he said. ‘I will help you find him.’ He guessed that that was the best first step in reaching the Lottery Gates, in reaching their keeper.

The Golden Rod

Si had been sleeping heavily when he at last stirred, his eyes heavy with slumber. His thoughts were clouded with passing dreams. The man of the lantern was raking the fire, who on seeing Si wake bent down and blew on the embers, and raised a flame. The air was cold and damp, and despite the fact that it was dawn, darkness prevailed.

‘We must set off and find the stream,’ the Lanternman said. ‘It will help in our search for the gardener.’

The beasts of the wilderness had become uneasy. The air shuddered with their cries, and the earth quivered. There was a rushing of undergrowth. But just as the Lanternman feared those native creatures, those creatures also feared him, and stood off, their eyes a smoulder in the undergrowth. It eased their journey once the two had damped their fire and set off into the darkness, under the pale light of the Lanternman’s lamp. At every turn they asked themselves which way should they go, until finally a tinkle and a little silver trickle showed them they had found the stream, whose course they followed. That, by its mysterious attraction, after what seemed days, brought them to the first completion of their quest. For here blocking their path was a wild, uncultivated man in blue overalls, to his right hand a wooden staff, in his pockets tools for the garden. He spoke, and was not so fearsome as he looked, a man who lived on locusts and wild honey.

‘You are lost,’ he said, and he knew they had come in search of the Lottery Gates. It was the same for everyone who came this way.

The Lanternman took the light from his lamp away from his face, so that in the gloom of the wilderness his features couldn’t be seen. ‘You are the first gardener,’ he said.

‘I am. You want to know which way to go.’

‘Yes,’ said Si.

‘Sometimes,’ said the gardener, ‘I think that only this is reliable as guide.’ He held up his staff before plunging it into a tight bundle of undergrowth. Behold, the staff lit up – a golden rod. The green of the bush he had speared burnt bright, a light in the darkness.

‘A miracle,’ said the Lanternman. ‘And this will light our way to the Gates?’

‘Not that simple.’ The gardener demonstrated, by pulling up the golden rod from the clump it had lit. Immediately the light in the bush went out, and the rod returned to its original form, a wooden staff.

‘But how?’ asked Si.

The gardener had received the staff when he had been set to work in the public gardens, which were not extensive. ‘In fact they were so limited my work was soon done and I was bored with little to do.’ It was then he had looked to the wilderness, and the possibility of extending the garden into it. He set himself that task, with the intention of making of the wilderness a garden as exquisite as the one he had previously worked: lawns neatly trimmed, little stone pathways, flowerbeds, water features, follies and statuettes, a shady grotto. With the magical properties of the staff he had been given, the work, at first, was easy. But as both Si and the Lanternman saw, the golden rod was only fleeting in its gift. So soon as it was pulled from the ground the work it had made possible was hard to maintain. Scrub it had turned to earth returned to scrub. Seeds once planted choked. Turf laid regrew as wild grass. The golden rod became a wooden staff.

‘However hard I worked, I could not make the smallest patch of wilderness into a garden.’

He went further into that wasteland, and now had to overcome his fear of the creatures living here. He lit his way at intervals by thrusting his staff into the undergrowth, sending out a golden light in all directions. Wherever he stopped to work, it was always the same – nothing he did had permanence. Then one day he saw in the distance the pale gold of what he took to be the Lottery Gates, for a greying old man at the roadside he had talked to on his way to work had spoken of what they enclosed, recounting his thoughts as one recounts a fable.

Said Si: ‘I have talked to that man myself.’

‘Not all his news was good,’ the gardener replied. ‘On other days he spoke of wars and terror and the inhumanity of leaders of nations.’

‘I heard nothing of that,’ said Si.

In time the gardener was able to beat a path near to the Lottery Gates, where he surveyed all that lay behind them – serenely bending trees, turfs, terraces, water features he had hoped to build himself, a blaze of agapanthus, blue, purple, white, and sunshine pouring in. The whole place was filled with golden light, not unlike that of an autumn afternoon. How could this be, when everywhere in the surrounding wilderness was darkness?

‘I saw how little I understood.’

He edged forward, hoping for a closer look at what lay behind the gates. Was there someone there he could talk to? He thought so, on hearing a voice. Someone seemed to be asking why he had come, what it was he wanted.

‘The voice was hushed, so unlike any I had heard.’

The Lanternman thought of his experience, and how the voice had treated him, but chose to say nothing to the gardener. He was sorry for his errors, for he did not know that he had found his destination, still certain of his view that such good fortune was the preserve of men of business: serenity in their pride, and wealth in the riches they amassed.

‘My joy,’ said the gardener, ‘was also my frustration. For it was not possible for me to enter. The wall and the gates are too high. I was left gazing wistfully into the fountains.’

There the figurines were as guardians of the water, the spring of all life, with one surmounting all others, blowing into a trumpet. So lifelike, the gardener said, he thought he could hear its fanfare. At this the Lanternman fell silent again, knowing how the gardener in the work he did had been granted greater insight. The only things in his past life that had lifted his eyes were two white peacocks, strutting with such authority, and a goose – a lost goose – a forlorn creature who seemed their very opposite. Now, he had grown so tired of the wilderness, and bewildered in having so angered the keeper of the gates. It seemed there was nothing in the world for him, though he still had hopes that the power that had altered his looks so outlandishly would alter them back. He was acutely aware of his life as having passed in a procession of chaos and disaster, and of the futility of all humankind, and how lacking he was in rectifying all such waywardness. He was haunted by his errors and mistakes. And had forgotten that he alone of the three here – Si, the gardener, himself – had been chosen to carry the lantern.

‘Is it possible,’ asked Si, ‘that with the help of your staff we can beat a path through the nettles and thorns and reach the Lottery Gates?’

‘The wilderness is ever-changing,’ the gardener replied. ‘I doubt if I could find my way again. Unless, of course, by the light of your friend’s lantern….’

And lo! Another miracle occurred. Where the gardener struck his staff into stony soil, the golden rod lit up again, and pointed a path west. The Lanternman took up his light, and led the way, with the beasts and creeping things of the wilderness in retreat, for all that was seen were their frightened, flashing eyes, as they backed away.

Still these were hard times for the Lanternman. With his light he toiled feverishly, leading the way. The gardener followed up immediately behind, and with his staff drove aside the undergrowth for Si, who brought up the rear. Much time they spent in this, but by slow, steady degrees the path they made through the densest waste brought them to a point where all could hear the stream – a gentle tinkle. By now the Lanternman had torn his flesh. The wounds had begun to bleed. But he rejoiced with what appeared sights and sounds of a clear spring morning, with its crash of early light, a radiant flood, and a chirrup of birds in the trees. Old fables had purveyed the groundless rumour that the stream flowed beneath the Lottery Gates. It was popularly thought that in following its course lone souls had found themselves. In folklore young heroes had battled on alone and found the elusive Lottery Gates. But to the Lanternman the truth was otherwise. Zealously as he strove, under the harshest conditions, the lesson he had learned was that individual heroism depended on the will of other people. Steadily, with the gardener’s staff and his own lamp, and with the friendship and sympathy Si had shown him, he had battled on, and now there was sight of the Gates.

In the darkness they began to hear music. Then a shaft of light poured through a tangle of branches ahead. The Lanternman held his lamp higher aloft, while the gardener struck with his staff. Then added to the music was a voice, and a song whose words were indistinct. Then suddenly there was light, a melodious light.

The Lottery Gates

Si, when he woke, admonished himself for sleeping, but could not have known how tired he’d become. There were the embers of a fire, which the Lanternman had lit the night before, but the only signs of him and the gardener were the lamp and the staff, left on the ground. For no reason, Si recalled a dream, if imperfectly so, where an orchard hung with fruit was bathed in autumn sunshine. Stark in contrast, as he looked out, the wilderness pressed on him more oppressively than ever, with the distant Lottery Gates a pale reflection of the sight greeting him just hours before. He reproached himself again—

‘I have slept too long,’ he said. His goal was tantalisingly close, but fading from view, and that was not a good omen.

He damped down the fire the Lanternman had left, until only ashes remained. The cries of the wilderness were near, as now eyes flashed with laughter, and not with the predatory instinct Si had grown accustomed to. He glanced up in the direction of the Lottery Gates, where in a sudden blaze of gold a tall, stately man in a blue tunic passed through and approached. His hair was dark and glossy, his eyes bright, and his complexion clear. Where he stood in the glow of the gates, Si could make out, stitched into the lapel of his tunic, an ornamental torch, with an orange flame. His features were open, friendly, and his presence commanding. One gesture only saw the laughing beasts of the wilderness disperse and disappear.

‘Ashes gone cold,’ he said, looking down at the remains of last night’s fire. The stranger sat himself next to Si. ‘I know how it is,’ he said. ‘Lost. Living not as you should. In search, but of what?’

‘You read my thoughts.’

‘Not at all difficult. Affliction colours everything you do. Its debilitating effects can be crippling.’

‘I am finding that out.’

‘Your wanderings have led you here, to the Lottery Gates.’

‘I have heard so much about them.’

‘Now you find obstacles.’

‘Which I hope to overcome,’ said Si.

The stranger left him and returned through the gates, and strode across the lawns, where he stopped to gaze into a clear, unruffled pool, and Narcissus-like beheld his new reflection.

Si, humbled, asked about his own passage through the gates. The stranger looked to the two objects Si’s departed friends had left him with – the staff and the lamp. ‘Which of these would you choose?’

Si didn’t know.

‘Perhaps,’ said the other, ‘you bear gifts of your own.’

He approached the gates, where the keeper wished to know of Si who had summoned him. He heard her voice only, and could not see to whom he was talking.

‘I had help,’ he said. ‘Two companions.’

‘That is not unusual.’

Si looked through the gates and saw the gardener, dressed in a blue tunic, at not too great a distance, vigorously turning clods of earth. Stitched into his lapel was an ornamental rose.

‘I know that man,’ said Si.

‘Is that so?’ said the keeper. ‘Then what is his name?’

‘Ah. I did not ask.’

The gates parted, but when Si tried to pass through he found that he could not enter. There was a line he could not cross. He walked back to the fire, which was now only ash and charred remains, and looked to the staff and the lamp. ‘Which must I choose?’ He picked up the staff, but immediately cast it down, which on striking the ground took the form of a serpent, which slithered away and uncoiled itself under the Lottery Gates. Next he picked up the lantern, and turned to the wilds and the darkness of the wilderness.

‘A good choice,’ said the keeper.

Si understood. On a last look back through the gates he made out a goose and two white peacocks, but the gardener and the stranger had gone. He turned his lantern to guide him through the wilderness, for a return to the place he had come from, and to walk among his people. On whom, he’d be asked, should he shine that light? Si thought for a moment. He’d begin with the greying old man at the roadside, then turn to the landowner and his son, then to his neighbour, for whom all things were written in the stars, for quite possibly that was an error of judgement.

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Peter Cowlam is a widely published poet and novelist. Ghosts in the Machine is his most recent collection of poetry, published by CentreHouse Press. His most recent novel is That Was Hugo Blythe MP, published in both hardback and softback by AN Editions.