The Lighthouse at the End of the World

Most people never questioned what was at the end of the world. They were too busy surviving their personal problems to even think about exploring the furthest extensions of the earth. Plus, most people believed that everything had already been explored and discovered, and there was no mystery left out there to find. I was relieved that there were not many brave ones. That way, there were less to kill. But, for the few reckless and passionate explorers, we had a plan on how to quietly get rid of them, and it revolved around me.

I woke up to bitter winds and endless blue. I looked out my round window, and from my perspective, all I could see was a bold blue sky that effortlessly melted into a grey-blue ocean. I jumped out of bed and ran across the wood floor to my squared window. I questioned if I should be running anymore. Today I was finally sixteen, and technically a young lady. Out of the squared window my eye could spot the Graveyard of Ships and past that, the Ice Wall.

Suddenly my door crept open and I saw fire. I gasped but then was quickly relieved: my mind was playing tricks on me. It was only a candle lit on top of a small chocolate cake. My dad tip-toed in, singing "Happy Birthday" off-key, as he had done for me every past birthday.

Amidst the excitement, I couldn't help feeling sad. Another year alone with my dad. I had read, in the various books I scavenged from ships, about girls my age who had friends and even boyfriends. My only friends were my dad, the seals and the bitter cold wind.

My mom had made birthdays exciting. She wasn't even supposed to live past her fateful day of discovering this pier, when my dad was supposed to kill her for sailing this far and seeing this part of the world. But when he saw her, he fell in love, and eventually I came along.

To the world, I didn't exist. If I did, my dad's bosses would have to kill me. He had signed up for an isolated life, as a watcher of the end of the world, protecting this secret.

Usually a cake would cheer me up, but today it didn't. My dad saw my forced smile and put down the cake.

"What's wrong?" he asked

I shook my head. My dad looked into my eyes and knew.

“Let’s get out of here fast! We have to get out of this lighthouse because we're going to the ships!” he declared. This excited me. I bounced out of bed.

"Okay!" I coughed. I must have woken up with a chest cold, but I wouldn't let that ruin the adventure of the day. As I began to layer my body for the cold temperatures, I realized how unusually hot it was in my room. My dad must have warmed the house extra for my birthday.

The day spent at the Graveyard of Ships was filled with adventure and laughter. I could tell my dad tried hard to make this day special. The ships didn't usually have a lot of goods since the sailors came to explore the wild waters, and that meant traveling as light as possible. But today we discovered some special items, and amongst them a book titled "Firestarter" by some author named Stephen King, and a rusted ring with a red stone that my dad said he could make pretty again.

The sun was setting as we walked back to our red house at the end of the pier, and the colors of the sunset reflecting on the sea gave our home the appearance of being on fire.

Suddenly something caught my eye toward the east. As I turned toward that direction, a small light was growing on the edge of the horizon.

"Dad." I said. When he saw the light he froze.

"Do you remember what to do?" he asked in a very calm voice.

"Yes." I replied as I began to shake. I hated when explorers came this way. I hated what we had to do. Why did it have to be on my birthday?!

"They would never survive after finding the Ice Wall. You know that. It's good to put them out of their misery and get it over with. I'll be close behind. Just distract them for a few minutes,” he said. I nodded.

The ship was swiftly approaching and I ran to the end of the pier. My dad lit the torch on the top of our house. He only lit it when we wanted explorers to be distracted from the Ice Wall.

My dad had been sworn to secrecy. The leaders of our world didn't want anyone to know the truth about the Ice Wall and the end of the world. Therefore we killed explorers so that they wouldn’t carry the truth back to society. I found small comfort in the fact that the waters were so treacherous by the Ice Wall that most wouldn't even survive past our lighthouse. My dad was simply giving them a less painful death. Once I had shipwrecked in those waters. In an early teen rebellion I had taken a tug boat out. Somehow I had made it back to shore.

The ship would be here soon. I would then talk to them, as if I were in danger, while my dad assessed the situation — how many shipmates were on board, and if they were armed. He would silently watch from some hidden spot. Then, when he knew everything he needed to know, he would tell me to run. I was happy to never have to witness the next part. When it was all done the ship would wash ashore to the Graveyard of the Ships and my dad would shut himself up in his room for the rest of the night and I would cry in my room, once again feeling alone.

My heart pounded as the ship sailed closer and turned toward me. There was only one sailor. He was tall and surprisingly young compared to the other sailors we had seen. As he approached, our eyes locked. My heart began pounding faster, not because I was scared, but because I felt like I had known and loved him all my life. I had to save him.

When his boat was a few feet from the pier, he smiled. I smiled back. In that moment it was like a thousand fields of marigold flowers bloomed at once in my heart.

Reality slapped me in the face in the form of cold wind. I knew my dad was watching from somewhere, waiting to pounce at the right time. The torch burning on the top of the lighthouse seemed to be growing.

"Help.” I said. I usually said this, but this time, I meant it. I wanted his help out of this cold dead life.

"Why are you here?" he asked, looking around at the isolated lighthouse, surrounded by miles of ice.

"I'm not supposed to be." I replied. Again this was true and would not raise suspicions to my father. I looked at the young man. He was so unlike the explorers that had passed through before. He wore a military uniform.

"Well how did you get here?" he asked.

"You have to go, George,” I whispered.

He froze and peered down at me strangely.

”I’m not George,” he replied softly.

I don't know why I called him George; it only seemed natural, as if I had known him before. My brain was feeling heavy and my body was feeling weak.

“You need to get out of here. You're in danger,” he replied stoically.

Suddenly words flooded out of me. Words I had been holding in all these years and trying to make sense of. "You have to leave because they don't want you to discover what lies south of this lighthouse. An ice wall and undiscovered territory. Beyond here are the answers to all their lies. My dad is hiding waiting to kill you. He had to kill all the ones before! I couldn’t save them! I tried but the waters ate them all!” My words were suddenly confusing me. My dad had killed them, hadn’t he?

Terror fell upon the sailor's face as he looked up at the lighthouse again. His face glowed from the light of the burning torch.

"You're in danger!” he yelled.

I laughed. I was in no danger. He was in danger. The sailor paused and looked at me.

"I don't believe you,” he said as he looked at me like I was an anomaly.

"You're too old to have a father alive."

Me too old? I was just on the verge of womanhood, with youthful rosy cheeks and a smile full of possibility. My hair was as black as the night sea and my skin was smooth, even in the midst of this unbearable cold.

"Marigold!” he said confidently.

I gasped. I hadn't heard that name in so long. Years. Decades. That three-syllable name brought back a flood of memories: my childhood in the Midwest filled with green fields and wild thunderstorms. My first love with a Vietnam soldier named George. My doctoral research into our planet and unexplored lands. My reckless trip. My discovery of the Ice Wall. My shipwreck. And all the shipwrecks and deaths I had seen of sailors just like me, coming to find truth as I had all these years ago.

Their wrecks had provided me with food to survive, but the tragedy of their deaths and human contact killed me a little more each time. Why had I been the only one to survive?

"It's so nice to talk to someone again." My voice was weak, out of practice.

"We didn't think you’d survived, but I'm glad I found you. Get in,” he said kindly and reached out his hand. I obeyed and stepped into his boat. Suddenly I felt the years upon my body. I was tired.

"I don't know how you survived out here for so long, undiscovered. It was pure luck your boat found this old research facility,” he shouted over the motor he had now turned on. "And pure luck for us that the lighthouse caught fire." He paused and looked at me. I looked down at the ash and minor burns on my body.

I turned around. What once was my lighthouse at the end of the world was now in flames. Reality and fantasy swirled around in my brain like mischievous twins, disguising and pretending to be one another. For a brief moment reality took authority. So the fire hadn't been for my birthday cake. It had been a real fire that somehow I had survived. I looked past the ruins toward the Ice Wall. It was still there. I hadn't made that part up.

"We did it. You and I. We found the Ice Wall." I pointed to the south. "We can tell the world the truth."

"To the world the Ice Wall doesn't exist and never will exist,” he said as his face turned from kind to pained.

"To the world, you'll just be a shipwrecked sailor who turned crazy,” he said sadly.

"That's the way they'll spin it,” he continued.

They. Whoever they were.

Suddenly he picked up a small rectangular device and spoke into it.

"Got her. Yes, sir, it is Marigold Cornwall. No, I don't know how she survived almost 35 years, alone."

At that moment I caught a glimpse of an old, wrinkly white-haired lady staring back at me. I turned away from the mirror and looked toward my discovery: the Ice Wall, now rapidly fading away, as these decades and the struggle for survival were for nothing and no one would ever know the truth about the Ice Wall.