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is living in a lighthouse and writing stories on a loud typewriter after which I sit on a craggy rock in a sweater, smoking and looking mournfully into the mists that cloak the town below before sighing in sorrowful resignation and going back inside...too much to ask?
...also I have a secret that I only get angry and storm off to slam the door when you try and broach the subject when you deliver my monthly groceries. But then I lean my back against the closed door and let out a trembling sigh and rub my hands across my weathered face...
...for the rest of the day I go about my chores but often pause as if lost in thought and a wistful smile crosses my lips for the briefest of moments...
...at night before bed I take a small vial of black viscous liquid from a box beneath my bed. The liquid presses against the sides of the vials and I sit looking at it in the sort of long drawn out bone bleaching moment when grey hairs creep up on you before putting it away...
...later when you return to drop off the month's coal and firewood delivery I ask you about whether there have been an unusual amount of birds around town lately, specifically crows.
I also say that your scarf looks very nice on you like that but then turn on my heel and retreat before you can reply...
...later when I am walking out to the edge of the point to take the sea air I think I see a solitary footprint at the edge of the cliff. I stop and stare...the footprint is coming from the edge of the cliff not towards it...
...the next time you come to deliver groceries you are wearing a new tweed chore coat and you smooth it nervously before knocking on the lighthouse door. The sound echoes within like a stone thrown down a dry forgotten well.
You think you hear a low keening like a cornered animal might bring up deep within its throat. No one answers the door so you leave the groceries as you have in the past and walking back to your truck you feel a twinge of wistful disappointment but over what you can't quite place
...much later when the lighthouse is ablaze and the oily smoke drifts down through the town you realize what it was and have to sit down suddenly at the rush of blood enormity of it all.
Now every time you walk up through the burned-out ruins of the lighthouse to stand at the point it is with an almost overwhelming sense of melancholic remorse that you stand looking back on painful memories that count among your most treasured and smile...
...of course randomly writing a 500 word rambling flash fiction is a good use of my time WHY DO YOU ASK
