The gargoyle spit water at the children. Rain gushed through its mouth that was frozen in a leering grin displaying its missing tooth. Oh, how it hated being stuck up here, unable to run through the grass or smell the flowers. And the children, heartless things, threw stones at it and taunted it. If it could only be free!
The gargoyle blinked, then blinked again in its surprise. That was unusual… It flexed one hand, then the other. It wiggled its toes and howled in delight. Free!
It scurried down the side of the church, pausing only to give a kind thunk to a fellow gargoyle that was still frozen. It ran across the courtyard and climbed over the garden’s wall. Even the stone soldier that guarded that garden smiled at the laughter and cries of delight that echoed of the stone walls. Back and forth the little stone man flew, gathering flowers, slipping through the garden gate, and filling the tall stone vase for the frozen gargoyles. Then he climbed into the apple tree and sang till he fell asleep.
Dozens of little feet ran down the road and stopped in front of the church. The loud cry of “Where’s the mean little man?” woke up the gargoyle, and it frowned angrily. What right had these children to wake him up and talk of him so? It peered over the garden wall at the clamoring group and grew angrier. The gargoyle jumped off the wall and growled. The children whirled towards him. “Shoo!” he cried and picked up a stone to throw at them. They shrieked and ran, followed by a scattered shower of rocks.
The gargoyle leered at them as they ran. It was a leer that showed his tooth, broken by the nasty children. He looked down at his reflection in a puddle and saw himself leering down from the top of the church. He tried to blink away tears, but he couldn’t move and the tears were just raindrops.
He spit water at the world.
An entry to the current Twenty-four Hour Short Story Contest. The prompt was "A gargoyle, from a top an ancient building, plots its coming escape into the real world." which I kinda subverted but not by much.