Sometimes you get an idea, and it just eats away at you, and if you leave it festering for too long it’ll eat itself up and all you’re left is the pustulent bile of an idea. The is the result of that process.
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It’s been a while since I last went to the lighthouse. I would jog past it each time I went jogging, which was few and far between. But even then it would stand, resilient against weather, against the waves beating against its base. It wasn’t a very tall lighthouse, neither was it a very old one, being powered by electricity and running unmanned, but it stood as a landmark on the beach – a tall, yellow beacon. People would gather under it when it rained, or meet around it when the sun blazed on the beach.
It’s been a long while since the last murder at the lighthouse. I heard stories of a girl being murdered there even when I was a little boy, and stories of how the girl was murdered would drift in and out of my consciousness each time I jogged past the lighthouse. I never knew the true story behind it, but as I grew up her demise became grimmer – any reason to avenge her death swelling greater with each pass. For the longest time I would refuse to climb the stairs of the lighthouse, for fear of seeing blood stains, apprehensive that I would witness her cold, unmoving body still lying there, unclaimed by man, by nature and by time, waiting to be avenged. I was forced to climb the lighthouse, one day, because a girl I was trying to impress was there – I had to be there to save her if the body was still lying there.
It has been a long time since the lighthouse was really used. Now there’s a larger, brighter, taller one just a short distance away. The ships no longer come so close to shore, and now there’s no reason to warn them away. The ships also got larger, the water shallower, and now the lighthouse stands there, unused. I suppose ships being further out would be a good reason to stop it from being used, its light a poor excuse for a beacon of warning. Even then, I wondered if they stopped using it because of the murdered girl. If she would lean against the barricade on the lighthouse, staring out at sea, searching with piercing eyes for her assailant, and when she failed, dimming the light, forcing ships to crash ashore, so that she would no longer be alone in her misery. When people gather under it, I would, then, wonder if she was trapping people in her tears. Save me, find me, except the rain would wash away the blood-written words, the name of her assailant smeared away.
It took a long time to finally get to the lighthouse. These days even that part of the beach is deserted, traffic rerouted to the newest beach haunts, fake waves replacing real ones, fake beaches replacing old ones. The sand is finer around the old lighthouse, the crowd thinner. I’d nearly taken the wrong turning there, but there was no mistaking the road in, cold, solemn, grey. Even with the sky awash in blue, the brooding spirit of a place once loved now mostly forgotten hung low in the air, suppressing ones mood. The lighthouse was a little off the road, but just a short while after the turning one couldn’t miss it. Creeping along the horizon, the lighthouse welcomed one – but anyone going there would feel as if the lighthouse was still doing its job, trying to warn anybody to come near to turn away.
And it took a long time before I realised the lighthouse was right. Just as I drove in, the alien mothership pierced through the sky, ablaze, the friction of sudden entry and the wounds of a sky battle apparent on its hull. Lasers shot out, going “pew pew”, and then the harsh sounds of fighter jets arrived, missiles launching. Then the sky grew gradually dimmer, and then something snuffed out the sun. My engine died. I stepped out of the car, wondering what was wrong, at which point the lighthouse fired a large beam into the sky and that was the last thing I saw -
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Like I said, best not let something fester for too long.