The Lighthouse

by Chrissy Osborne

The lighthouse thought of herself as being eighty feet high. In fact, she was seventy-nine and a half feet but liked to image herself as taller. She was almost 150 years old and was built of brick and had thick walls that had withstood violent storms. She lived on a small island about ¼ of a mile off the coast. She didn’t know where, but on a clear day, she could see the coastline.

She loved to look out across the seascape. There was a different vista in every direction, and even though she was old and only had one huge eye, her eyesight was as sharp as the day that she was born. She loved the fact that the weather changed. Some days were calm, and the sky was blue. On other days, the cloud came down to meet her, and the wind whistled past. Even though she could not travel, sometimes she did dream of distant lands.

These days she was mostly alone. They had automated her almost forty years ago. Technicians monitored her from the shore and visited for the day several times a year. But, it hadn’t always been this way. She missed the days when a keeper stayed with her all the time.

She thought about Peter whenever loneliness set in. He was a quiet, gentle man. On pleasant days he used to sit outside amongst the overgrowth and watch the birds. Sometimes he would photograph them. He was always meticulous about caring for her, and when he visited she was always cleaned with love.

Sebastian on the other hand was rough. He only paid attention to her when something went wrong. He would walk around the little island, and because he never took his boots off, there was always mud up her steps and across her floors whenever he stayed. Even though he believed that he tidied up before he left, she sensed that the other keepers dreaded coming on a tour after Peter.

However, Faye had been her favourite. Faye used to don rubber gloves and clean and polish her for the first few days. Faye always made sure that she was looked after. The parts that needed oil or grease were always attended to. And Faye took great pleasure in cleaning her glasswork, even during balmy weather.

She smiled to herself when she thought of Faye standing on the spit in the sunshine. The last full day that Faye had been with her, the clouds broke and she remembered Faye’s yellow dress highlighted by a ray of sunshine.

The day that Faye left was different. She had felt Faye’s hand run down the balustrade one last time. Faye had gone to the accommodation area and had changed back into her male clothes for the trip back to the shore. She could sense Faye’s unhappiness.

This time a group of men disembarked the lighter. They had boxes of tools and equipment. They had come to modernise the Lighthouse. They ripped some of the parts that she had been born with out and replaced them with new, cheaper, electronic parts that meant that she no longer required a keeper. It took almost two weeks, and when they left her insides were strewn with beer bottles and detritus. She had been without love since then.

A story written during a thirty minute online session with “Writing Together in 2023”.