The Back Gate

It sounds cool, VIP Jenny, to get picked for special card-swiping elevator floors and free snacks. I love snacks. Did you get a tiara? I can so see you in a tiara for your half marathon. Hey, Regular Bob, I suppose it's back to winter in good ol' GB. I look forward to reading the new improved Bernie story.

Mona stood looking through the pickets of the back gate. The pickets themselves were in good repair, excellent shape for wood in the tropics actually, but the flimsy gate represented much more. On her side was cool clay tile, laid with precision and well scrubbed every day. Outside the gate was another story. Weeds and flowering vines grew rampant in the vacant lot, trash blew and heaped against the rusting wire fence, fronds and tiny brown cones, detritus from the palms and pines that grew there, piled up to be sorted through and rearranged by the wild donkeys that roamed the island. Mona looked at her manicured nails, her perfect makeup, her styled and sprayed hair, and her rigidly chosen outfit and thought she looked like she was on the correct side of the gate. But her eyes were drawn to the flamboyant mess outside the gate and she couldn’t help wishing she belonged there.

--Barbara