We Are Bulletproof | 2

lighthouses [anecdote]

lighthouses

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"What are you doing out here?" Her voice carried in the wind like dandelions departing for autumn.

He heard her muted footsteps crunching the fresh grass as she approached him, sensed her perch beside him without opening his eyes. "Hm?"

He didn't need to see her quirky smile to know it there. "Soaking up the sunlight? Well, I have to try."

She settled her back onto the blanket of green, her eyes staring up at the detonating canvas of sky with the ocean glittering sound in front of them. "Wow. I could get used to this."

"I like coming here sometimes," he said to her quietly. "With too much pandemonium in our little chaos, this brings me... Clarity, sanity. A sense of a light telling me the world is huge, but I can explore it. I'd rather sit back and just listen, though."

She smiled; he could feel it from under the darkness of his gaze. "It's pretty. I love seeing the boats settle into the harbour."

They settled in silence, under the darkening ceiling of blue, before he finally turned—his elbow dug into the earth, his side facing her for the first time this evening. "If you were any part of this beach, what would you like to be?"

She met his eyes, mirth twinkling in reply. "That's, like, really random. What do you mean by that?"

"Look," he nudged his chin in a vague gesture of the entire setting around them. "Around us. What would you like to be? The sky, it breaking into infinite colour? The ocean, an endless, undiscovered odyssey? The leaves, shriveling under time and season? What would you like to be?"

Her mouth opened partly, curiosity reflecting in the mirrors they looked through. "I-I... Uh, I think..."

She sat up a little, taking everything in again. Her eyes fixate onto the harbour. "I think I'd like to be a boat. Whatever boats get to do, I guess? You know, because they've visited places, explored, like you said. They're allowed to travel the world, have the grandest expeditions, have a... a home everywhere." He brushed a hand against her denim coat. "What about you?"

"Lighthouse." Their eyes drew to the structure to their far left, atop the boulders of shore.

She tilted her head, and he laughed. "You want to be a lighthouse?"

"Yeah," he said. "I want to be a beacon in the dark, an eye in the storm, a hope in a flicking, burnt out world."

Slipping into silence, he leaned in his back again and shut his eyes. "Besides, without me, how would boats know when they're safe to come home?"

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