The Lightkeeper

The wind shrieked like a pack of hyenas, and the rain thrashed the lighthouse like a hundred whips, mirroring the storm brewing inside Elias. After three decades as a lightkeeper, he had seen more than his share of Nor’easters on this rugged coast. But tonight felt different, as the storm raged with an ominous roar that sent a foreboding chill of something not-quite-right down his spine.  

A flash of lightning through the window illuminated the silhouette of a three-masted ship near the rocky shore, losing the battle with the waves. He grabbed a lamp and some life-jackets, and rushed out the door toward the churning sea. He heard a sickening crash and splintering of wood as the doomed ship dashed itself on the rocks. 

He scanned the waves and nearby rocks for survivors. Moments later he heard a cry for help and saw a dim shape flailing in the water. Elias rushed into the surf and pulled the drowning man ashore. The man choked and coughed and sputtered seawater through his mouth and nose as he struggled to breathe.

Elias looked at him in the lamplight, and his blood ran cold. The face was his own! Younger, water-logged, battered, and bruised, but undoubtedly himself from a lifetime ago. How could it be? 

The man recognized Elias, his eyes widening with surprise and fear. “Don’t stay,” he wheezed. “You must leave…now.” The light from the lamp flickered and died, as did the light from the man’s eyes, and he was gone with a gasp. 

At that moment, Elias knew the awful truth. Deep down, he always knew, but it was too painful to admit such a terrible, unbearable thing.  

It was he who had died at this very spot thirty years ago. It was he who had tended the abandoned lighthouse ever since — ever watching, ever waiting — to provide a rescue for shipwrecked souls that he himself had not received that fateful night. 

And tonight, in some strange way he could not explain or understand, the ghost of his past came to tell him to move on. His shift was over, his time as lightkeeper was done, and he could finally rest in peace.