The Redwood Ship [Part 11]

I'm in the Lighthouse

There's a lighthouse that exists Nowhere and Nobody lives in it. It looks at me with its spinning, cyclopean eye, casting myself out across nervous oceans made of storm clouds. Something stands on the lookout, a shadow tripled over watches my ship stagnate at the dock, and I know it's waiting for me. Voices churn the lightning below, billowing up waves of smoke that scream at me. Plead and beg me. My hands twitch at my sides and I can feel the blood dripping down.

A soul-shattering horn shakes the heavens. My judgment has called. The ship breaks at my feet, crumbling down in to the clouds, but I stay afloat. Adrift with no anchor. My judge looms over me as its light falls dead upon me. The jury circles above waiting to devour me like common cod. My executioner I know well, and I know His feelings towards me. The lighthouse foghorn descends upon me again and I think I know what is to become of me. But when the sound clears the air and I can see again, I find myself face to face with a man I barely know.

"Dad?" I step forward, for the light shadows his features. I see him nod. "What's going on?" I begin to yell as the wind picks up around us. He gives no answer but moves forward as well. Lightning sparks the world and I fall to my knees. My father's soulless shark eyes watch with all the hunger I expect from an entity like him. Dead to a hurricane his body still spills with seaweed, his mouth clogged with netting but I can still see the sharp teeth working to chew through. "What are you!" I scream with clouds swirling around us, caught in the vicious slipstreams, obscuring everything but us and the moon falling upon us.

He only points at me. That moon haloing him in silver light while its gravity moves tides within me. His hand is webbed, tipped with razors. I look down to see the same on mine. I scream again but it's so drowned out now I can't be sure what I said, if it were words at all. Blood flows from the claws in to the growing pool I kneel in. I see faces in it. My hands fully submerge themselves as I'm forced closer. Rain begins to lash my back and makes me aware that I am bare. It stings and some external spine flexes under the onslaught.

My grandfather is in the blood, grinning up at me the way I remember my mother use to when she could be proud of me. There's others too. Faces I know and miss very much, some I don't recognize. My own face distorts until I'm looking at my father again.

"You are your father's son, for better or worse," my mother's voice echoes in the thunder. He stares at me with wet, unblinking eyes. Hair wild and long drifts around his face as he floats below me. Cracked lips part to release bubbles that pop against the surface, covering my face in the blood, echoing those awful words. "You are your father's son."

The air is electrified, lightning cracking every few seconds with thunder trumpeting not far behind. My arms shake as the weight of the world breaks against my back. I force my head up to see the clouds part. The lighthouse stands so close now. Its glorious light replacing the paternal moon. I'm pulled towards it all the same. The foghorn's siren wail forces me to crawl up to the behemoth. Taller than any redwood. I lift my body from the swirling liquid that fights to pull me back down. The blood of the covenants and the water of the womb works in tandem to drag me away. But I'm in the lighthouse now.

I'm in the lighthouse

I'm in the lighthouse

I'm in the Lighthouse

I'm in the Light. For once in my selfish, wasted life, I'm in the Light. My God is glorious. I crawl up the stairs and the jury descends upon me. Their beaks tear at my back. They pull away chunks of scales and fins. I was born against nature and I'm reminded of this everyday. It eats away at me because I had some sort of audacity to be born. A snake eats through my mind, tearing away chunks of memory. And I crawl. And from my broken lips flow these chants.

"Storm the lighthouse and weather it down to teeth. Feast on fathoms so above as below. Shine the bell and ring the light which calls sailors to their briny tombs."

The top of the lighthouse thrums for me. Its light sings with me. the flock of albatross dig in to my bones. They mock me, defile me, guilt me as one booming choir.

"And it's Heave Ho, batten down the Captain's soul! Hoist yourself upon the flagpole and wait for Devil Jones to take you home!"

They nest in my chest, vying to eat my heart, but I'm so close. That beautiful light, my sweet light. My everything. It drowns out the squawking smothering me. I reach out. So close. My fingers are scraped to bone. Flesh bubbles at my wrists. So close. One final prayer as the light kisses my broken form.

"Sunshine. Don't take, my Sunshine away."