The Man and The Lighthouse

The Man & The Lighthouse

madeleine rosevear

At last, I was alone before the sea.

CRASH, she bellows. KSHH, she wails and retreats. Beautifully expectable and enticing. Timid yet unapologetic. A shame, I think now. A shame what we have done.

My knees ache as I sit perched on a tiny knoll of hardened sand, overlooking the coast. I’m not sure which coast I am at, but it feels like home.

I think kindly of the sand, and of the shore. I think kindly of the rocks that withered to become a pillow for these breaking waves, and of that teasing moon that tugs and pulls her around. I think kindly of the vast horizon and what falling beyond it would feel like, would it feel thrilling? Would I chase flying pirate ships like in the novels I had once read many moons ago. Would I be scared? Would the horizon swallow me whole?

Maybe, I hope like a little boy, that I would simply fly. I think kindly of belonging to the ocean, or to the sky. Perhaps even to the moon. As I sit before her greatness, and I think of the days ahead. I hope she thinks kindly of me too.

Perhaps not, perhaps she knows it all and has felt what I have done. But it is too late, my dear friend and I am sorry. I can’t quite place what I have done, but I feel it.

I think the sea is whispering something to me now, I can’t decide if I want to listen. I’m ashamed, perhaps embarrassed. But I stay put, I’m intrigued. I can hear now a voice that I have yearned for. I feel my bones fail me again as I urge my shrunken body to move. I feel a need to crawl forwards, like a mule with a carrot dangling in front of me.

I can hear her whisper, and peculiarly I think of my cheeks. How someone I loved would giggle and pinch them, before placing a perfect kiss upon them. Now they feel so heavy under my eyes. Years of grime and grief dragging them downwards. I can recall the smog that clogged my pores and the dirt under my nails that stained them brown. I can remember her name,

Martha. Oh Martha.

I remember Martha telling me to wash my face more often, saying that my pinch-able cheeks hung now like wet bed sheets. “That place will be the death of both of us, my sweet.” She would say, as I climbed into bed. Then she would reach over and place another perfect kiss on my lips.

I remember my back failing me before my sons eighth birthday. I remember Martha taking sick days to watch him because my joints didn’t allow me to keep up with his antics anymore. I remember uprooting us to be closer to the docks for work, where the smog weaved its way under the door frames. Sleeping amongst the rodents and pouring into our home through the mice holes. I remember Martha telling me she should leave me if I didn’t reconsider jobs. I never did reconsider, and she never left me. Not by choice, never by choice.

I remember her first scan, her cherry cheeks beaming when I arrived at her side and took her hand. “Thankyou.” She whispered. Eyes sealed behind simmering tears, yet they remained the most perfect set of eyes I ever saw. “Harry can survive an afternoon without me.” I leaned in, placing my palm to those perfect cherry cheeks. She squeezed my hand and pulled me closer so we could move past my lie.

I remember the silence that lingered in the clinic after I slammed the office door, storming out just a handful of minutes later. Dirty, pointless minutes that changed everything. I remember cursing her lungs for giving up on her and on us. I remember arriving to work after it all and feeling as though the black huffing tubes of poison in the sky had big hands. Constantly trying to catch me. I remember burying Martha near our first home, and cursing the horizon for teasing me with the fall.

I do not like recalling so much at once, so I focus back on the sea and whoever is whispering to me. It is a woman’s voice, and its gentle. Maybe it is Martha, or maybe I am as crazy as the nurse says.

The voice is woven in-between each crash of the wave so I can’t quite make out what it’s saying. I can’t decipher if I am scared or called to it. Like a mule though, I still feel inclined to go forward like that is all I am good for.

I sense that a man has been looming behind me for quite some time now though, the grumbling of his car rings out like my son’s belly once did. I can place that he is not too far behind me, a safe distance. Maybe I could run?

The car murmurs still, he has no doubt left it on to keep his toes warm, he always was a pansy when it came to the cold. If my bones weren’t as wilted as they are in this moment, I would be able to run. Or maybe I would march right up to his rumbling car and the tell the strange man to get going. I’m not sure the type of person I am or what I would do in this situation. My neck cranes slowly to view him, his head lurking just above the car door. The smell of the fumes wafts closer to the shore, and I feel an annoyance surge to protect what is mine, but I do not have the words to utter it.

“Dad, gotta get up now, eh?” His voice strains to reach beyond the seething car and the trifling waves. I think of the clashing noises that the engine and the shore spew at each other as some face off of the ages, a conversation I will never get to hear,

“It’s been a while now.”

I do not know what awhile is and I do not know this man, and despite my annoyance I feel a tug behind my ribcage, so I purse my lips and nod my head. I do not have the words to utter it, but this strange man knows, I think.

I, however, do know this. That is that I feel everything all the time and all at once but then not at all. I can’t offer anymore or any less. Thoughts start and end as quickly as the rolling tide before me. I crane my neck back to the ocean and I simply begin again, thinking kindly of the sea. The car door shuts, but it does not drive away.

I think of what story I have blazed and if there is one at all. I’m not quite sure, but I can taste the feelings it conjured remain like a burnt tongue.

I do feel despair and a desperate yearning to be at home. I think of Martha, a name I remind myself not to forget again. I look again to the strange man. He isn’t looking at me anymore, his face is lit by some bright light in his palm. Disturbing music pounds from his car, I remember my son had an obscure music taste in his teen years. I wonder if he would get along with this strange man. Big black huffing tubes of smoke race out the backside of his car, coming to get me.

My breathing hitches slightly, remembering buying this exact car model. My sons face lighting up as I passed over the keys, it was a few years after we lost Mary, or Martha I mean. Money was sparse and running out quickly, but I remember how incapable I felt watching my son fade just as quickly as my wife did. I remember the debt collectors being surprisingly kind, putting me in touch with some suit guy. The suit guy told me to invest my money, what was left. So, I invested in what I knew, the corporations that created the smog.

The same smog that killed my wife, I think. I recall how dirty it felt to watch my retirement fund flourish again, I remember thinking of Martha and what she would think. What was the cost? I can’t remember the cost now. But I think I feel it. I think my son will too.

I think now of needing to return, somewhere I can’t place. Perhaps to a home I have no memory of, or something greater than that. I believe there is a predator just beneath the water’s surface or beyond the clouds, sneaking ever so slowly towards me ready to pounce. A clocks hands ringing out for midnight, a mighty cycle of life and of love and of reparation ending just to begin again. It will begin again, it always does. I know now, as I smile to the shore. I will return to the sea and to the sky and even to the moon. Maybe as the wind or as one of these waves. Maybe to Martha. It sends chills down by nagging bones.

I’m not sure if the voice is still there, I’m not sure I would like to listen anymore anyways. I’m tired. I am very tired. And I feel more sorrow the longer I have this conversation with the ocean. I think she is angry. Maybe disappointed is a better fit. Martha loved the sea. She would tell me that we never came down to see it enough. “We should be grateful for having the sea so close by” she said in a little huff as we spent another weekend within the bounds of our home. Tending to broken shelves or mice holes.

And I was grateful. I was grateful for her and for our son. I was grateful for good interest rates and promotions. I was grateful when Harry got a divorce because he started doing more overtime. I now realise I was never grateful enough for this. And I am sorry for neglecting her greatness, I wish we all paid more attention to her.

The car door opens again, and before the strange man can howl at me again, I wave my hand out. ‘I’m coming’, I mean to say. My bones cry out, like they have for decades now as I pull my body off the sandy knoll. But before I can make a true ascent to the strange man, I listen out for the voice once more. I take a few measly steps in the sand towards the water, and I think I hear it. Just maybe, I can’t help myself as I tread closer.

“Dad, c’mon.” The strange man’s voice was closer, he was coming to get me.

I’m at the water’s edge now, one more step and I’m home. I look down to see the whitewash chase up to my sorry shoes.

CRASH she bellows, KSHH she retreats.

Beautiful, I remember. She spits one more wave towards me and I notice something out of place. Something shiny, I wait for another roll of the tide. I bend down, my body pleading for rest now. Screaming at me to turn around but my heart and my mind said otherwise. I want to understand. The wave returns to me, and I put out my hands. Lots of tiny things smack my palms and I clutch down hard. I stand up again, knees and shoes completely soaked through.

I open my palm and peer down. I’m not sure what it is, I want to take it away though. “Dad, please.” The strange man was right beside me now. “You will catch your death here.” The man had a hand on my inner elbow leading me away from the whispering sea.

“What is that?” He says, taking my hand. I want to throw him off me, why is he touching me so much? He forces my fisted palm open. “Dad, it’s just rubbish. Put it back.”

He takes my wrist and forces me to drop the peculiar pieces of shiny things back to the sand. One of them was so light it floated right back to the sea. I watch them return to where I found them. I feel something horrid swell in my chest.

I do not understand what is happening, but I do feel as though it is terribly wrong. I think again of the whispering and wonder what it really was. My neck reaches one more time to glance at the ocean and I ponder on what has just transpired. Maybe, just maybe it was crying out to me. That the hidden sounds in between its mighty roars were simply weeping currents. Drowning in poison and clutter. Pleading for restitution or attention. A crying storm of an ocean not quite powerful enough to trump man and his greed. I feel responsibility and I feel sorrow again, but even more so I feel tired. I smile to the sea, with a hint of newly gained guilt hiding in behind my teeth. I think kindly of my time here, but I know now that she does not think kindly of me.

A part of me is grateful for the fact I will not remember any of this once I look away and return to wherever I was before this. I will not fret over what I have done because I cannot remember what I have done. I understand that the sea, and the sky and the horizon will never forget this, will never forget us and what we have done. I look to the man beside me, and I wonder if he will remember. Will he feel this too when he is decayed and helpless. Maybe next time around I will do better, maybe we will do better.

The man shuts the car door once I am safely inside, and I say my goodbyes through the dirty glass. I think on the story I have told. Whatever this offers to the world, I am truly story. I do not intent on changing it. This world, capricious and dense, does not need any more sad stories. But this is not a sad story, because this is not a story at all. This would need to be fiction to be a story worth anyone’s time. I guess my final day at the beach may be a reminder, for us.

Martha would probably nudge me in my shoulder and say that is ‘far too disheartening, my sweet.’ So maybe instead, think of me as this. A lighthouse, simply casting light to help those nearby.

Or think of me as I am and that is at the brink of return. Hoping to do better next time.