Keeping A Light On. (Revisited).
Every evening, the little old man climbed to the top of the spiral staircase to light the lamp; staying there, thinking upon life, until the dawn’s early light rose. He slept, during the day, in a cot near the base of the lighthouse; eating the food that the kind folk from the village left him.
For forty years he had tended to the flame that shone out for the mariners’ safety; like his father, and his grandfather, before him.
The mariners, whose sea had receded ten miles beyond the old coast line many, many years ago.
I want to know more about this man. My fertile mind made him a widower.
He is very old, has just the desire to do his duty by the mariners (to keep them safe) and lives his routine day after day with no let up. I think that he has this to keep him alive, if it stopped or changed he would be lost. His mind may have generally gone AWOL a long time ago. He may have been married, or lived as a bachelor – he seems to be the last of his line. Thank you for reading, Lesleigh. G:)
The thing with a short story is that there is only room for a few details, the back story is not shown, and the slight vignette of his life is all we really see – then, if we want to, we can just wonder about his past. G:)