Shorts, Writing Prompts, & Random Thoughts

The Silent House by the Sea

The lighthouse living quarters are silent this time of night. Though the mice scuttle about the cobwebs under the spiraling stairs, and the windows are tossed open to allow the salt-kissed breeze to caress the curtains- it is quiet. 

The waves throw themselves at the sheer cliff face, angry. Their white-capped fingers reach for the greying sky, searching for their stolen droplets. When the roars of the sea crash into the rocks, even the lichen shrink from their fury. 

But nothing is to be heard among the once-creaking stairwell of the fading structure. She sits atop the cliffs, forever bound to her duty to stop unaware sailors from throwing themselves to their deaths among the bones of the ocean at her feet. Her eyes are always scanning the horizon, waiting to catch sight of the far-away masts. 

Her ribs are old and broken; her chest heaves with briny air anyway. She stands tall and unmovable among the dying, wind-tossed trees at her sides. 

The Silent House wasn't always quiet. There were days when sailors and youngsters hurried up her steps, once with torches, and more recently with lanterns. The grey clouds would roll in along the far stretches of her coast, and the peals of high-pitched bells would sound, and the footsteps of the wary would tickle her bones on their way to her crown. 

Oh, but when her beacon was lit, the fire in her heart would rage just as strongly. Her purpose was fulfilled- her duty clear before her. Her eye would blaze with that sense of gratitude and belonging. The little beings would stay with her- watching the horizon as she did. 

She spent those first years watching sailors steer their barges and ships away from the dangers of her coast, and felt triumphant. She felt her keepers grow and bear little children of their bones. They would grow and care for her too, and her heart was warm. 

But those keepers eventually stopped coming. So did the barges and ships. The cold seeped into her soul, and her beacon was left unlit; The fire in her heart was left to embers, and eventually to smoke and ashes. The wind became harsh. The salt on the breeze tore at her skin, fading the color from her. The keepers never came back. 

There were still small ships and boats, sometimes. She would try to warn them of her sharp, shallow coast. Of the damning, drowning waves that would throw them at the cliff face in anger on those cold, stormy days. But without her beacon, without her voice, they could not hear her. They always came too close. Their brittle, wooden bones would break against the rocks, and she could do nothing. 

Her weeping would not be heard either. Even the mice under her staircase of ribs would ignore the groaning and swaying in the tearing wind after some time. So silent she became.

The windows stayed open. Her eye stayed dull and dark. The coast stayed cold and damp and served as the graveyard it had now become. 

So when the breeze drifts through and kisses the battered curtains, and the mice retreat to their burrows in the night, the Silent House watches. She waits for those sailors that will come crash against their awaiting death, and she sits there- beacon unlit. Until her bones are buried in that graveyard among the rocks, she will watch.

In silence.