[pencil sketch: lighthouse standing in a wheat field]
The lighthouse was not supposed to be here.
It stood in the middle of a wheat field, its white paint slowly fading into the color of dust and sun-bleached bone. The wheat grew around it like water frozen mid-wave, as though the land itself had forgotten it was not the sea.
Every evening, the lighthouse keeper climbed the spiral stairs and lit the lamp anyway. There was no fog. No ships. No horizon of water.
Still, he turned the key. Still, the light swept across the fields in patient circles.
“It will come back,” he said once to no one in particular.
The wheat did not answer, but it leaned slightly, as if listening.
Years passed. Roads shifted. Maps were redrawn around the mistake. But the lighthouse remained where it had always insisted it belonged.
And every night, the light continued to search for a sea that refused to arrive.
← back to Untastic