the lighthouse

Roger was sitting on the back balcony eating jello when the mail came. He had gotten fairly addicted to the stuff in the hospital a few months back, and now he ate it almost every day. Laura made big batches of the sugar free kind for him on the weekends, and poured it into a dozen white ramekins she had brought from town. He scooped a chunk out of the dish and sucked it into his mouth through pursed lips. He liked to hold each bit in his mouth for a moment, feeling its strange shape and consistency before mashing it with his tongue and swallowing without chewing. He liked how the ramekins were almost clean when he finished, hardly any of the jewel toned gel left clinging to the sides.

He heard a car on the gravel road long before it ever reached the lighthouse. Perched high above the village on the cliffs that overlooked the bay, the days were long and warm and quiet. Only the sound of the waves and the gulls broke the silence.

He heard the car crunch to a stop, engine idling, and he heard the rusty protest of the mailbox as it was opened and closed. The car drove on.

Roger scooped out the last bit of orange jello and pondered the empty dish as he held the bit in his mouth. There wouldn't be any mail. There never was. Not until the fifteenth or so when a few bills would trickle in. He didn't even get junk mail. Advertisers probably thought he was too far out. Far out.

But, there was the water bill he had left for the mailman to take away. He turned the ramekin from side to side, studying the few tiny remaining droplets of orange gel. He would go and see that the bill was gone.

Roger turned back into the cool darkness of the brick cottage attached to the lighthouse where he lived. He moved through the dark rooms without even thinking, and out the front door where the sunlight greeted him again. It was an Indian Summer this year, and Roger privately hoped it would be over soon. The sooner the cold set in, the sooner it would be over.

He stomped down the cement walk out to the road where the venerable old rust box sat on its post like an old man on a stool. Half way there, he paused. The little red flag was still up. Maybe it hadn't been the mailman after all.

Occasionally one would get a bored tourist from the village below who would drive up in their shiny rental car and snap a picture or two of the nameless lighthouse before driving back down again. That's probably what he had heard.

Just to be on the safe side, Roger decided to check. He opened the mailbox and bent over at the waist to peer inside. Something moved.

Startled, Roger jumped back and cursed as a crab scuttled out of the mailbox and fell to the ground. He watched it running for its life across the gravel. Wrong way, he thought.

He clutched his chest and swore again for good measure before bending over again. He inspected the dark interior carefully before putting his hand in and drawing out two envelopes. One, small, brown, padded one, and his own water bill.