Lighthouse

“I don’t see why we have to man this,” Jack said.

“Come on, Jack, you know why.”

In truth, the lighthouse seemed a bit pointless in this day and age. Technology had surely given ships ways to see and be warned of things on the horizon. Any captain in their right mind ignoring all warning signs deserved to crash.

“But, I’ve not even seen a single ship pass through here in an age,” Jack said.

“That’s not the point,” his father said. “The point is that we are the last warning. The last line of defence before disaster.”

“I could be spending my time doing something worth it.”

Jack’s father was fond of frowning. It wasn’t always Jack’s fault, but the man felt strong and connected to his duty manning the lighthouse he just wished his son had that same sense of duty.

Unfortunately, Jack had hit adolescence. So there were many distractions from the path he tried to illuminate.

“Jack, did I ever tell you about the time me and your grandfather were in this very same position? And that –”

“Oh, come on, dad, I know that’s a made-up story.”

“It’s true! All those years ago, me and your — ”

It was then when the power cut.

The shining beacon that was the lighthouse went out in a flash. The room kicked into emergency lighting and the red lights illuminated the worry in Jack’s father’s face.

“That’s not good.”

“Doesn’t this happen often out here?” Jack said. “Surely we’ll get power back — ”

Jack’s father shook his head and pointed out the window.

“No. Look. Electrical storm.”

From their vantage point, Jack and his father saw the lightning arc and fork its way through the landscape.

“Well if the lighthouse isn’t lit, then there’s no point us — ”

“Jack, we’re staying right here. I need you.”

“Dad I hardly doubt — ”

Jack saw it then.

A ship, cutting through the darkness, on a collision course with the lighthouse and the world around it.

“Oh,” Jack said.

Jack’s father followed his son’s gaze and out to the sight. He had the protocol for this in his mind, but executing it was something had hadn’t done in quite the long time. And long before illness had cost him the use of his legs.

“Listen. Jack. You need to help me.”

“That ship is going to turn! Don’t worry!”

“Our comms are dead.”

“No they’re not!”

Jack’s father pressed his finger down to ping any nearby ships.

“Come in, this is LH-426, over,” he spoke into his microphone. “Come in, this is LH-426, you are on a collision course with some rather large rocks, do you copy?”

There was silence on the other end. Jack looked back to his father.

“Son, please. We have to get this place up and running again.”

“Dad…”

Jack looked at the approaching ship. It was still a way out, but it wasn’t showing any signs of slowing or changing course.

“We need to get the generators started again,” Jack’s dad said. “Now I can get them started from down here, but I need you to get up to the beacon and manually get it started again.”

“Can’t we — ”

“It’s the only way. You expect me to go up all those stairs?”

“Okay,” Jack said, as he started to head in one direction as his father wheeled himself in another.

Even if his father had the full use of his legs, Jack wondered if his father could even manage the climb to the top. There was no lift in the lighthouse, power-cut or otherwise, so in the event of having to start the lighthouse again there was no route to take but the 291 steps that led to the top.

Not that Jack counted this on his mission. It was always one of those factoids put on the wall of the lighthouse, but not necessarily a climb he wanted to put into practise. Jack hadn’t even reached the top since he was a younger and stupider. To help this oncoming ship avoid obliteration, however, Jack would have to run up every single step. And that was the furthest from an easy task.

Getting to the generators and restarting them, however, was a simpler objective that Jack’s father could complete. It was a bit tough manoeuvring around the masses of shelves and servers on the way to the generators in his wheelchair, but he knew his way around. It was no doubt helped from all the hide and seek he once played as a boy and again when his son was a boy. Jack’s father knew the lighthouse like the back of his hand. It was a shame that he was relegated to just the ground floor, but not much could be done with his condition.

Jack had lost his breath not even a third of the way up the vertical climb. A spiral staircase only offers one kind of view and that’s an infinity of exhaustion. Jack would be glad once he made it to the summit, but at what physical cost.

Jack’s father soon kicked the generators back into action. There were a lot of handles being turned and pulled and buttons flicked and switched. He had had all of the instruction manuals committed to memory, with all reference cards and material nearby collecting dust as Jack’s father replayed the scenarios that filled his head over the years.

The lighthouse was his life, and he wasn’t going to let any small oversight fail him in his job.

Lights began to switch on as they spiralled their way towards the top of the lighthouse. Soon bulbs brightened and lit the path for Jack as he struggled up the lighthouse. The lights stretched above and beyond him, giving him the realisation of his target. It still seemed far away, but the thought of the approaching vessel kept him making progress.

Jack’s father swung back into the command centre of the lighthouse in his wheelchair and made a route straight to the radio. He flicked switches to restart the panel and tried to use the microphone again to try and contact life.

“Come in, this is LH-426, over.”

Jack collapsed through the door at the top of the stairs and into the beacon room. He stumbled as he almost fell over a nearby railing before gathering his jelly-legged footing. Exhaustion was one thing, recognising his fear of heights at a time like this was another. A gaze behind and down the spiral staircase he just finished mounting inspired Jack to throw up what was left of his dinner.

With a turn to look back outside, however, and Jack was focussed back on the task. The ship was really covering distance at speed. If the efforts of himself and his father are in vain, well, it would be a hell of a death.

He made a start on trying to find out how to reignite the beacon. Jack’s father had told him how to do so, of course, but that was a long time ago. Jack had since filled his memory with athletes’ names and stats and girls’ numbers and measurements. The teenager had other priorities, not just the guidance of his dad and his uneventful job.

Jack struggled, then, with the realisation that he had to try and rack his brain as he tried to find a way to turn the beacon back on, even though his father had already proven to get the generators back to work.

“Jack, have you gotten the beacon back on?” Jack’s father asked over the lighthouse’s PA system. “Jack, you need to follow the instructions up there.”

“I don’t see any instructions!” Jack yelled back to the speakers. Jack’s father could only speak and not hear.

“Jack. You need to walk around the back of the beacon.”

Jack followed his father’s words and stepped around the narrow circular walkway to the back of the beacon.

“Okay.”

“Are you there? Do you see a handle? It should look like something you can twist, like a corkscrew!”

Jack’s hands slid around the black obelisk that was the beacon until his hand felt something poke out the side of it. His fingers slowly slipped into grooves as he clenched the handle.

“Very important! Don’t twist it just yet!” Jack’s father said seconds after Jack twisted it.

“I twisted it! I twisted it!”

The room lit up red. The lighthouse’s warning systems were fully operational.

“WARNING. WARNING. VESSEL APPROACHING. WARNING.”

“Don’t worry about the warning, Jack!” Jack’s father shouted over the speakers. “You need to pull the handle towards you!”

Jack nodded to himself and took a deep breath and exhaled, the warning siren still at full volume. He tried not to get distracted and honed in on his father’s voice.

“After you’ve done that, you need to turn the handle counter-clockwise, and then push it away from you!”

Done and done, Jack smiled at his completion of his father’s instructions.

“Now. Finally. Turn the whole handle clockwise and hopefully…”

Jack nervously followed the final step until…

The lighthouse shone brighter than ever with the manual reboot. Jack shielded his eyes as the lighthouse’s beacon illuminated the path of the oncoming ship before spinning and revealing the surrounding area.

Jack retreated from the pain of the bright lights and could make out the trajectory of the nearing ship change. The lighthouse began to shake and wobble as Jack held his grip tightly against the nearby railing as the ship flew overhead.

Avoiding the lighthouse. Avoiding the asteroid field that populated the space around it.

Many a ship had been caught in that asteroid field, but it was always Jack’s father’s duty to never let it happen again. And it was Jack’s duty too.

When he stopped letting his stubbornness during electrical storms kick him into gear.