The Lonely Lighthouse!

(Write about a character who’s stuck in an elevator when the power goes out.)

Almost running from the parking garage to the lobby of her office building,  Laura is mentally scolding herself for staying out so late with friends on a Sunday night.  She knows from past experiences that she has little self control when fun is involved.  She will choose fun every time.

Hurrying across the lobby, her backpack slung over her shoulder, she feels the weight of her laptop and other junk she thinks she can’t live without.  Too bad none of it is a lunch she will wish she had in about an hour as of course she had no time for breakfast.

Pushing once, twice,  then a third time in rapid succession on the elevator button, she is frustrated.  Now she doubles up her hand and pounds a few times on the up button.  Finally after a long three or four minutes, the door slowly opens.

“For crap sake!” Laura exclaims,  “This is totally worse than most Monday’s!”

The doors close like the power is dwindling or something is restraining them but finally they begin to ascend.    In the forever minutes that follow, she slowly reads the floor numbers as they reach upward….three….seven….she must go to the twenty-fourth floor.  As they grind upward she reads fourteen….she is tapping her foot anxious to get to her floor.  She can’t afford another warning for lateness.  

Boom!  Not a real sound but a jarring stop!  The elevator shakes and quivers!  Now all is silent!

Then a disembodied mechanical voice announces, “DO NOT PANIC!   We are encountering problems!  Please remain calm!  We are working on the problem!”

“Really?”  “Really?”   “What else can go wrong?”

After what seems like an eternity Laura takes off her jacket, folds it and sits on it in a corner of the elevator.

The voice returns repeating the same message,  “DO NOT PANIC, yada yada yada….

Digging her laptop out of her backpack, she sends an email to her office about her current situation and then thinking about how to spend her time, she decides to quell the shadow of fear that is still lurking in her subconscious by doing a favorite thing.  She would write a fantasy story….searching her mind for an idea, she thinks of a parallel situation of being stranded somewhere.  Her fingers fly over the keys, it feels as though this story has been trying to get out and here is a great opportunity!

—————

THE LONELY LIGHTHOUSE

The lightning is blinding!   The thunder follows so quickly the lightning strikes must be very close.   The deep rumbling is almost continuous but it is the wind...the wild, screaming, unrelenting wind!  And the mountainous waves!   It is impossible to hold on,  to save oneself by muscle,  I have tied myself to one of the stanchions.  The mast would be better unless the wind snaps the mast and shards of wood rain down on you or the mast itself crushes you.  The heavy ropes dig into my body,  chafing my skin and then the ship is on the rocks!   We are goners!   There is much screaming and deep grinding noises as the rocks eat the ship like a giant sea serpent chewing the wood.  I am trying to remember any prayers from my childhood but my head hits a beam hard and then only blackness!

~~~

Far away sometimes and very close at other times,   the cry of gulls is the first indicator that I am still of this world.  Wetness,  rocks, slippery weed and debris are my world now.  I must get out of the water,  I must get dry!  My lungs burn from the swallowed water!  Crawling slowly,  I manage to reach the top of the wall of jagged rocks that form the seawall.  There the blackness overtakes me again.    The times of blackness are brief now,  I make more progress each time toward a tall structure,  I cannot raise my head to see but clearly I see a door!   I must reach the door!  Exhaustion pulls at my very being,  I will never survive,  why fight this!  Let it go!   But one last time I crawl forward to the door,  pull myself up and find the door locked tight....and then again, deep blackness!

Waking now to hot sun on my skin and deep thirst,  I roll over and allow my body to expel the sea water that has lain in my belly.  Gagging and coughing I get to my knees,  yes the door,  then in despair I remember it is locked.   Falling against it, it opens easily and quickly.  Crawling into the coolness I rest against an iron railing or support.   I am alive!  My belly is sick!  My throat burns!  My eyes feel swollen but my God,  I am alive!  There is no more strength to fight off the blackness and again I lose consciousness!

When next I wake,  I find myself in a bed,  covered by a musty blanket,  there is soup on the table.   I slowly sip at the soup,  spoonful by spoonful,  my hands shake as I bring the soup to my lips,  the weakness is terrible,  I feel childlike,  small and helpless!  The warmness in my belly encourages me to crawl back onto the bed.

Waking again,  my wounds have been bandaged and more food is on my bedside table.  I call out again and again....there is no response!  

Days of this and finally I can stand,  I can walk around the room looking for the person who has saved my life!  I look as far as I can but find no one.

Finally strong enough to try the winding stairs going up and up I slowly investigate and explore the whole lighthouse.   There is no one!   I am truly alone here!   My mind says this is impossible but my search finds no other.

From the very top of the lighthouse, I scan in all directions, there is nothing but open sea.   Looking down at the grounds that surround the light house there is only one very small structure,  a tool shed or a pump house or a place for the storage of the oil they burn for the light.  Again I  scan in every direction.  I remember hearing old stories of the Eddystone Light,  could this be that light....standing here nearly forever....destroyed and rebuilt a few times,  songs sung about it,  but no....even with the force of the storm,  the ship could not be blown so far off course.  Trying desperately to make some sense of the facts,  I conclude there should be no lighthouse here....none on any nautical map or chart I have ever studied.   

Going down now, I again look at every shadowy place a person could conceal themselves,  nothing.   In the living quarters everything is old, very old, rusty if metal and rotting if wood.  In the corner,  an old sea chest,  that will be next but I am so very tired from the climb up to the light.   THE LIGHT?   Why haven’t I noticed if the light is working?  It is a mystery how logical things have escaped me, my mind feeling as sick as my body.  I again give in to the exhaustion.

Waking this morning,  all seems normal.  Normal for this place I mean,  there is food,  there is drink,  there is no one here!  I then remember the sea chest.   It opens with a creak and a whine of rusty hinges before the cover opens enough to see inside.   

There is a stack of daily log books kept by the light keeper.   The pages wanting to dust into nothing.  I can make out a few entries.   The last.   “I am ill, very ill,  I know it is more than the illness of old age!  What will become of us?   What will become of her?”

No further entries.......

A spyglass, a broken hand held compass,  glasses with wire frames and tiny lenses,  that is all.   In a small drawer built into the chest side I find another book.

DIARY.....printed in gold leaf....inside,  the fine hand of a woman.  “My husband of many years is ill and will not survive this night!”   “My final promise to him so his soul  could go peacefully was that I would remain here forever....if anyone approached this light....if anyone should need help,  I will be here,  day or night,  forever into eternity”!

I can almost feel a cold draft,  a presence around me but my fear is great and I cannot look!  My imagination is creating fear but if someone or something meant me harm.....it, she or ?   Would not have nursed me back to health.

I must decide....I cannot imagine or contemplate any logical explanation and yet it is!   

This is happening!

In my mind I decide....a few more days....I need a few more days...look for any wood to construct a raft!  Find a map showing this location!  Something,  Anything to let me leave here!   

I am not afraid for my body,    I am afraid for my mind!   I eat food where there is no food.  I have clean bandages where there is nothing clean or fresh in the whole lighthouse!  

How can I keep my mind from leaving me?   

Have I died?   Is this a sailor’s haven just short of hell?   

Of one thing I am sure,  I am free to decide how this will end!   

Alive and totally mad.....or trust the ocean to swallow me up!

~~~

Laura’s fingers freeze on the keys.  The elevator has given a hum and a shudder! Then quiet again.  

Laura looks at her remaining battery symbol,  thirteen percent!  She turns off the laptop saving the remaining battery for another email to her office.  She hopes this will be over soon.  

Another hum,  and another shudder and slight movement,  slowly rising she waits anxiously to read the next numbered floor on the display, and the next...