So, the photos are real they are taken by me, they are in West Melbourne, I was taking a shot of the building which I found interesting, not least because of the lack of gates 2 through 7 when this man and if dog wandered through frame.
It seems like the start of a story to me so I asked AI (Perplexity specifically) to write it for me, and you know I think it's done a great job, okay the specifics aren't there but it can't see what I can see (maybe I should have uploaded the photo) If I was that way inclined and I might be it's a good jumping off point for a short story, let's see what it wrote:
Martin’s Tuesday started with the usual noise—the drunken groan of the coffee machine, the whippet Rita letting loose a symphony of claws on linoleum, and his neighbour, Mrs Hanrahan, belting out “Advance Australia Fair” with her only-just-awake cockatoo. But this morning, Rita pulled him like the ghost of urgency straight down the footpath toward the old Mirabel building at Number 120.
Martin always noticed that place. It was a hulk from a different decade, all faded pink render and doors that insisted on being called gates. On the left side, a neat black ‘Gate 1’ shimmered in the sun, almost official in its confidence. And on the far end, past parking bins and a bush of recycled petunias, ‘Gate 8’ stood, slightly crooked, as if it had been waiting for a complaint no one ever made.
Rita wandered inquisitively, nose to the ground in mathematical loops. Martin looked at the wall and did something he’d never done: counted the gates. There should be eight, shouldn’t there? But between Gate 1 and Gate 8, there was… nothing. No Gate 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. Just stretches of featureless wall—bare, unmarked, untouched. It felt as if someone had written the beginnings of a password and lost interest halfway through.
All day, Martin tried to let go of it. But he couldn’t. He circled the Mirabel on his lunch break, peered at neighbours’ stories about “historic renovations” no one could quite explain, and he even asked the hardware store manager around the corner. The manager told him the gates were “always like that,” then winked, but Martin couldn’t tell if it was a joke or some secret handshake he lacked.
By Friday, Martin had a theory. Maybe the gates existed somewhere else in time, or only showed themselves to worthy passersby. Rita’s only comment was to chase her tail, but Martin felt a gentle tug. What was Gate 2 like? Gate 3? Did they open into rooms, or stories, or into the sort of mysteries you only find in middle-age when a whippet leads you there?
He’d walk past every morning and every evening, tracing the wall, his imagination building doors. Sometimes he saw flashes—a brief shimmer of number, a hinge catching light, but then it was gone. He wondered if life was like that, mostly walls with invisible doors, waiting for someone curious enough to look out for them.
And every time he glanced at Gate 8, he felt a little more certain: between one and eight, the story wasn’t missing, it was waiting.