Lighthouse Logs: Hour 78

Another mark in the logbook

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The stone walls are damp. The light beam turns slow and patient, cutting through the tapping rain. Outside, the sea keeps its silence.

Another mark in the logbook. Nothing. More crashes of thunder, flashes of lightning, thumps of waves on the shore, a rustle outside. I’m still waiting.

I have a small cot, a few dials, a shelf of meaningful things. A photo in a black frame of a woman so beautiful, a brass bell engraved with images of flowers and birds, an angel carved from white stone.

A wave crashes. I tap the transmitter again. Three short, three long, three short. Nothing. No one. The hiss of the storm. I look at the photograph framed in black. Beauty, comfort, home. I wonder where she is, what she’s doing. I hope she is well. I hope she remembers me.

A crash of thunder. I turn the dial, back and forth. Silence. Still. Hissing. The bell, so ornate, so elegant. I can hear its chimes in the wind from long ago. My father standing in the front yard, calling me, teaching me.

I hear a thud against the wall. I tap the transmitter. Three short, three long, three short. Nothing. Lightning flashes, the lamp goes out, the room dark. I hold the angel close, knees up, on my cot. Its stone face cold on my skin.

A crack, like a ship’s timber splintering, erupts against the wall. A thud shakes the photo from the shelf. I freeze. I hear a slow scrape outside.

Thud, thud, thud.

I tap again —

three short,

three long,

three short.

Nothing.

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