It’s weird translating my our work, but I did my best. If you notice any mistakes, don’t hesitate to comment, it’s also a valuable experience for me. 🙂
I wrote the original text on February 2, 2018.
The Extinguished Hope
The sound of the sea could always express both everything and nothing. As the lighthouse keeper gazed at the waves crashing against the towering cliffs, he pondered what emotions stirred the ocean’s depths.
Could these be the impressions of all the souls it had encountered? What did the breeze bring with it?
Hope, unfulfilled and distant? Or resignation, descending upon the weary and defeated?
He had been looking at the sea for decades, still wondering when and how it would end. He did not know why and how, or where that path he had entered would lead.
So what if he lit a lantern every evening, which burned like a bright torch, a guide for sailors, , in a world devoid of them? So What did it matter if people regarded him with respect, when he harboured none for himself?
When the waves had cast away the wreck of a small boat ashore, he stood for a long time, peering over the horizon, trying to see what his eyes could not.
But he saw nothing, no clues, no answers, only a cold, unyielding face, the face that the sea showed to anyone who dared to look.
And he recalled with profound sorrow.
Again, standing atop of the lighthouse, overwhelmed by the weight of many years of memories, pains, and worries, he stoked the fire with his old, tired hands.
He felt the warmth, heard the flames crackle, and saw the night’s darkness give way to light.
As he descended, a hopeful thought lingered in his heart: "Not tonight, I cannot bear it this evening." Fate, however, laughed confidently, gazing into his face and seeing his weariness.
The next ones awaited him. The hundredth – the Keeper remembered each one.
The faces of those he had sent away haunted him nightly; he envisioned them gazing towards the horizon, their voices echoing in his mind. He never knew their names; he never asked, unable to bear the weight of knowing the names of those he saw off as the last of the living.
That time there were two of them. Two dreamers to whom he had to bid farewell.
The boy was tall, with dark hair and strikingly vivid blue eyes, in which the Keeper could find the strength and desperation that he had seen in so many glances. There was resolution and hope on youngster’s face, hope that the heart of the island pulsed with. He was young, the Keeper suspected he was scarcely over sixteen.
The girl was shorter than her companion, yet her face displayed similar endurance. She seemed to be his opposite; she had bright red hair, a small face, and brown eyes, still wet with tears after farewell. Even younger than her companion, she had barely outgrown her childhood.
Gazing upon her, the keeper’s heart fractured anew, shattering into innumerable pieces.
They were likely the youngest of all who were given to him.
He was not the guardian of the lighthouse, bestowing light and hope upon lost sailors. He was a deceiver who, under the guise of hope, snuffed out the light of life.
He hated it.
"Are you sure about that?" he simply asked. He knew that no arguments would change anything, only increase his and their pain. He knew that no words could extinguish the hope that lived within them. But he had to try to halt them; these simple words were the only thing he had the strength to attempt.
"Yes." The answer was just as simple and certain, though full of pain.
The lighthouse keeper was not surprised. He gestured towards the boat, ready to set out on its next journey.
Only the stars and the Keeper witnessed how the two set sail, borne away by a strong current. Both raised their hands, bidding him goodbye, and vanished beyond the horizon. The moon was new that night, as though shying away from the unfolding tragedy. Only the keeper and the stars bore witness to the silent farewell.
He now stood, gazing at the wreck of the boat cast ashore by the waves.
Overwhelmed by the burden, he felt he could not continue, having sent a hundred crews to their demise; this first hundred would be his last.
He could not harbour hope as he boarded the boat.
That night, he sensed a reversal of roles; this time, he was the one laughing at fate.
Only the stars would bid farewell to the departing boat.
And the Moon, resplendent and full, bore silent witness.