Lighthouse Keeper

I have always believed in the rhythm of the sea. The rhythmic crash of waves against the sheer cliffs below my lighthouse, the metronomic sweep of the lantern’s beam through the night, even the familiar crackle of the radio. It’s all a predictable, comforting pulse. Every morning, I go through the same routine. After a solitary breakfast of hardtack and coffee, I climb the winding stairs to the lantern room and begin my log.

“Echo-One, this is Lighthouse One-Six-Six,” I announce, the words a familiar incantation. 

The radio crackles back, a warm, human voice responding from the mainland. I list off the ships that had passed in the night, noting their ID numbers from the manifest. I report the wind speed, the wave height, and the general mood of the ocean—today, a restless gray. The routine is a tether to a world I feel is slowly slipping away with each passing year.

For the first six months, the conversations are as dependable as the tide. I get the occasional joke from the operator, a passing comment about a storm on the horizon or a new song on the radio. The lighthouse is my world, but the radio is my portal.

Then, the static begins to grow. First, it is just a moment’s delay, a slight hesitation before the operator responds. 

“Copy that, Lighthouse One-Six-Six. All events logged.” 

Then, the pauses grow longer. I repeat myself, the words feeling heavier in my mouth, until a faint, muffled “Copy” comes through. Soon, there was nothing. The speaker has gone silent.

I, however, do not break my routine. The rhythm is too ingrained. I still climb to the lantern room each morning. 

“Echo-One, this is Lighthouse One-Six-Six. One freighter, ID 722-Golf-4. Visibility at six nautical miles. The ocean is a sickly, churning green.” 

I wait. A moment of silence. Then another. I wait for five full minutes before lowering the receiver and meticulously logging the information in my journal as if I had received a confirmation.

I stopped noting the weather. The sky had grown permanently bruised and the sea a constant, violent churn. The rhythmic crash against the cliffs was no longer comforting; it was a frantic, hungry beat. The salt spray had begun to corrode the metal fixtures faster than I could clean them, leaving a flaky orange rust. 

I no longer feel the gentle sea breeze; a constant gale howls around the tower, a mournful song I no longer listen to.

One morning, as I gazed out, a glint caught my eye through the storm’s hazy curtain. A ship—or what was left of one. Its splintered mast jutted out of the waves like a broken bone. A day later, there was another. And another after that. Like jagged rocks, their fractured forms pointed toward the sky, monuments to the storm.

I climb up down the stairs, the worn wood groaning beneath my weight. 

The glass of the lantern room is cracked now. A spider web of tiny fissures spread out from the center, distorting the world outside. I run a finger over it, feeling a strange vibration, a low hum that seems to come from everywhere and… nowhere… at once. 

I turn on the radio again, but there is only a low, persistent hiss. It’s as dead as the ships below.

Standing in the lantern room, the broken light behind me, the sea and its jagged iron teeth before me. The shattered glass of the lamp feels like a punch to the gut. It isn’t just a broken light; it’s a broken promise.

The days that followed ran together like spilled ink. I no longer knew the date. Time had lost its meaning, becoming a low, persistent hum beneath the storm’s roar. The copper trim on the lantern room had long ago turned to verdigris.

The salt spray had eaten through the window frames, leaving gaping holes that let the sea air in, thick with the smell of brine and rot. I had forgotten what a restful sleep was, the kind that came with dreams and a quiet mind.

My rest was a hollow ache, a few hours spent staring at the ceiling, waiting for the first light of what I assumed was morning. The taste of hardtack had long since faded from my memory; my tongue felt like a piece of driftwood.

I could almost hear the monoliths off the coast whispering on the wind. I watched their jagged forms from my window, their broken masts and ripped sails appearing almost to wave at me, beckoning. Like a congregation of the dead, gathering to watch me.

One early morning, the flash of lightning and a low rumble of thunder woke me. My routine, calling to me with the strength of an unbreakable chain, a familiar unpleasantry.

I needed to log the night’s passage, to climb the stairs and record the ships, the wind, and the condition of the sea. I stood and turned toward the wardrobe, photos pinned to it of rolling fields and a laughing child, a vague and distant destination in my mind.

I reached for the journal and the pen, but my hand was thin. And the pen was missing. A cold dread trickled down my spine. The first clear feeling I had felt in a long, long time, washing over me.

I looked back at the bed, at the thing lying there. It was a man, withered and sunken, with a tattered blanket pulled up to his chin. A skeletal hand was still clutching a pen, the one that was missing.

I looked at the face. The eyes were closed, the lips pulled back in a silent grimace. A cold, stark recognition seized me. It was the same face I had seen in my reflection so many times, now pale and dead. 

My face. My body.

“Ah…”

I ascended the stairs, leaving it behind. I stood, my back to the shattered lantern, and watched the waves crash before me.