The last lightkeeper

There is a lighthouse at the edge of the world.

It stands not on any map, nor does it appear in satellite photos. Its foundation is older than language, and its lantern shines with something more ancient than fire. You won’t find it by boat or plane. You find it by feeling lost enough. Broken enough. Empty in that very specific way that only truth can hollow you out. That’s when the fog lifts. That’s when the rocks part. And that’s when the last Lightkeeper lets you in.

She has no name, or rather, she has had so many names that she no longer wears any of them. Names slide off her like mist. She lives alone, or perhaps with ghosts—not the kind that rattle chains, but the kind that live in long silences and unfinished thoughts. Her hair is the color of rainclouds. Her eyes, tide-dark and endless.

She doesn’t ask why you’re here. She already knows.

Inside, the lighthouse is not narrow and steep, as one would expect. It opens like a cathedral. Spiral stairs curve up and up, lined with shelves holding objects you recognize without knowing why: a ribbon, a stone, a broken watch, a dried flower. You reach out to touch one and pull back, suddenly overwhelmed by the echo of a memory that isn’t quite yours. Or maybe it is. Maybe you just forgot it for a while.

The Lightkeeper leads you up, and the higher you go, the quieter the world becomes. The sea below falls silent. Your thoughts still. At the top, the lantern room is filled with a glow that doesn’t cast shadows. It warms but doesn’t burn. It illuminates but doesn’t blind.

You ask her what powers it.

She says, “Everything you’ve ever tried to forget.”

In that moment, you understand. The light isn’t just light. It’s loss, and love, and grief, and memory. It’s the name you never learned to say. It’s the goodbye that never came. It’s every version of you that you outgrew but never truly left behind. It’s your mother’s hands. Your father’s silence. It’s the friend you once had a thousand conversations with in your head after they were gone.

The Lightkeeper keeps it burning, not so ships can find the shore, but so souls can find themselves.

She tells you that the world is full of people who are wandering. People who carry their own broken lanterns, flickering with whatever they’ve managed to salvage. And sometimes, when the storm is too strong, when the compass spins wild, they need this light. Just for a moment. Just to remember where they are.

You ask her how long she’s been here.

She says, “Since the first forgetting.”

You ask her if you can stay.

She shakes her head, gently. “This is not a place for staying. Only for seeing.”

So you look. You look out across the endless sea and see not water, but time. All the moments you dropped. All the people you were. They move below like currents. Some painful, some beautiful, all necessary.

You realize then that the lighthouse doesn’t save you. It reminds you that you were never truly lost. That even in the darkest nights, there is a light stitched into your very marrow, waiting to be remembered.

Before you leave, she gives you something. A vial of sea glass. A feather. A key. You don’t know what it unlocks, but it feels heavy with meaning. She doesn’t explain. She simply places it in your hand and smiles like someone who remembers the first dawn.

You descend the stairs slowly. The objects on the shelves hum a little as you pass. The air feels different now, charged with knowing. When you step outside, the world greets you with silence and fog. But the fog doesn’t feel as thick. The silence doesn’t feel as lonely.

You don’t look back. You don’t need to. The light is still behind your eyes.

In the days that follow, things begin to shift. You find yourself remembering old songs. Saying the names of people you had buried beneath years. Writing letters you don’t send, but needed to write. You walk more slowly. Breathe more deeply. There is a calm in you now that wasn’t there before. Not a peace that everything is perfect, but a peace that you are part of something vaster, older, and deeply human.

Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, you catch yourself staring out a window, searching. Not for the lighthouse, but for what it lit up inside you.

And maybe, one day, you will tell someone else about it. Not directly. But in the way your voice softens. In the way you hold space when someone else is lost. In the patience you offer. The kindness you extend without reason.

Because now, you carry the light too.

And though you may never see her again, the last Lightkeeper smiles. Because she knows: every time someone remembers, her lantern burns a little brighter.