There is a lighthouse. It sits by the seaside, as all lighthouses tend to, but is placed too far from the shoreline, as if its creator had intentionally built it so that people would ponder its placement. It’s crumbling. Like a deteriorating castle, brick by brick the lighthouse appears to be unraveling itself as brick sized holes adorn its side. Huge cracks run up and down the spine of the lighthouse, letting through the bitter, salty sea air. The few metal bolts that at one point seemed to have a purpose, leak tears of rust down the grey stone. Mold and mosses from the ages have congregated at the lighthouses base, slowly beginning to consume the behemoth stone cylinder. There are only two windows that face seaward, both of which show the distortion and fade that only time can provide. Clouds begin to darken the sky, as a coastal storm begins to swell inland. Circling through the clouds is a grey spotted seagull. As it gazes below, it notices a large black crab as it scuttles across the shadowed cliff face.

A man, weary of life itself, sits hunched over in an old wooden chair. He stares out the lighthouse window, watching the seagull circle above. His tired eyes have seen so much. So much time has passed before those eyes… Two world wars, a deceased family, friends long gone, and the decay of the lonely lighthouse he now calls home. The man sits, contemplating the world around him. How he hated himself. It wasn’t anger or sadness that plagued his mind, but an overwhelming sense that he had failed everyone. He begins to reflect on who he is, a retrospect to define him. As he contemplates his purpose, e can only think of pain. Pain he caused, pain he witnessed. His past is unbearable.

 He sits, hunched over in the chair that shows its scars more than he does. He can’t think of pain anymore. He rises from his seat and slowly begins to walk towards the window. The wind begins to rise as frigid sea air leaks through the window panes. The man sees the seagull, wavering in the vicious winds. He follows it as it swoops low, below the cliffside. As the seagull careens towards the rock face, the man feels a twang of panic. The winds begin to batter the helpless seagull into the rockface, crunching its wings helplessly against the cliff. The man senses a need to help this poor bird. If only he could help. He has always felt this need to fix things, an instinctive drive that consumed his being. He feels as if he should be able to reach out and save the bird, swoop it out of mother natures’ vicious storm. How he has always wanted to save things. It wasn’t a matter of control, but a sense of solidity and empathy for the world around him that promoted this need. Whether it was helping the people around him with their troubles and confusions or saving wounded men in combat, the man felt as though he could always reach out and try to fix things. The man begins to remember when he couldn’t reach out or help. It was over so quickly. The accident was so fast. They said there was nothing he could do. Woe and grief slowly overcome the man as thoughts about his son fade. The seagull continues to drop, falling, attempting to regain balance. If only he would’ve found a balance, if only he would’ve been stronger. Maybe then he could have saved her. As the helpless seagull begins to plummet towards the wave’s dark surface, the man’s knees buckles as tears slowly pour from his eyes. He uses what little strength he has to support himself with an outstretched arm. The cold window against his flat palm sends a wave of goose bumps down his spine. As his glassy eyes regain focus on the world around him, he watches in horror as the seagull is swept under the waves. The man begins to sob as he replays the past in his mind.

It was a day like any other. Low fog had begun to seep through the redwood spotted hillside as brisk morning air crept in through his passenger window. The steam from his hot coffee twisted up into the Jeep’s felt interior ceiling. The man slowly raises his mug upward, whispering a ripple across the surface of his coffee. The man then took as sip, as his eyes looks upwards, gazing at the road that flew beneath him. The man’s chapped lips were speckled with freckles around his lips, and his eyes a softer blue showed that his youth still ripe within him. The tires spun comfortably on the wed road surface, as his son accelerated over a slight rise in the freeway. The wipers danced rhythmically across the windshield, eliminating the heavy fogs’ condensation. Visibility was a bit low, but a day like any other.

“What ya’ lookin at Dad?” His son’s question broke his stare. He blinked and turned to face his son. Such a strong face he had. He had his mother’s father’s jaw line, and he had the same shaped nose, but other than that he looked just as the man had- strapping and strong- when he himself had been younger. His son’s shoulders were bulging from his tight hockey jersey that he wore over his thick black sweater.

“Nothin’ much son, just thinking about things with you and your mother. That fight was night was unacceptable, I will not put up with you talking to my wife in that tone of…”

“Dad relax, don’t involve yourself. It’s really not what Mom is making it out to be. She overreacts, you know that. The only reason I took that tone with her is because when she gets stuck on her tangent conversations, she strays too far from the point and the whole discussion ends sloppily. I meant no disrespect by talkin’ to her that way Dad, you know I know better than to do that to my own…”

“I’ll have no more of this! You may have meant no disrespect son, but watch yourself. You have to realize that your mother is also my wife. Get the picture?” the man finished, giving his son a wink of affection.

The man took another sip of his coffee. The man saw it out the corner of his eye, just feet ahead on the freeway. The man’s eyes bulged as the deer darted into the path of the speeding Jeep. It all happened so fast. The man screamed, “Stop!” The boy slammed on the brakes and twisted the steering wheel left to avoid it. The wheels began to lose traction as the car hydroplaned, swerving across the freeway. The boy attempted to counter steer, to catch his drift and gain control, but it was in vain. The car was sliding parallel to a wet concrete surface at seventy miles per hour as the wheel stopped turning from the brakes. The boy screamed. The man threw his arms up in defense as the car began to roll. There was so much noise. The hood of the roof collapsed inwards around the man as the impact slammed his head into the misshapen metal. Broken glass shards, debris and sparks from dark metal came to life around him. Life stood still. The sky was the ground and the ground was the sky, over and over, for what seemed like days. The Jeep finally began to lose its momentum and slid on its back until it came to rest.

Ringing filled his ears as the man slowly began to focus his eyes. He was upside down. His seatbelt choked his body as it held his weight against gravity. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, thunderous. He felt as if his head was going to explode.  He looked to his left, towards the drivers seat. Expecting to see his son’s unconscious body, the man stared in horror at what lay before him. Shards of broken glass and road debris adorned the ripped Jeep seats, but there was no son. Addrenaline exploded through his viens. He began to scream, “DAVID!!!!”. The man reached across his chest to unbuckle himself. As he pinched the button the seatbelt receded and he toppled, rolling out the shattered passenger window. Broken glass scraped his forearms as he squeezed himself outside, ducking his head through the window. He managed to drag his legs out of the wreckage and support his weight on the highway divider. His legs were badly injured, blood was seeping through his jeans on his left leg, he couldn’t put any his weight on his right ankle. The man began to call out. “DAVID! DAVID CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” Pain swept across his body as he felt himself going into shock. His heart began to pump faster and faster. He had lost his son, his baby boy. He couldn’t lose him, he wouldn’t. He grabbed onto the wooden highway railing and began to hoist his weight up, hoping to get a better look down the roadway. There on the roadway, bits of debris and rubble led his eyes to a dark heap. It wasn’t moving. His heart sank. Horror overcame him. The rest was a blur. The next thing he knew, he was on his knee’s, holding onto his son’s limp body. The son’s eyes were shut, the youth stripped from his lifeless body. He could only remember the sounds of the sirens as they approached as he clutched his son.

He had always prided himself on his ability to fix things, he was a problem solver by nature. But he could never fix her. Things were never the same. She hated him. There was no other way to explain it. She had blamed him from the moment it happened. She insisted that he could’ve done something, anything. She gave up on him. Therapy, counseling, and rehab would never bring back the wife he had swore under oath to protect twenty-six years previous. Drugs were her escape from the world, the painful world that was. Losing a son meant losing everything. She got addicted to the darkness around her, she had told him how it always comforted her like he never could. The drugs were the easiest getaway. The doctors insisted it wasn’t his fault. It was never his fault. It was only three days after he had picked her up from the latest rehab clinic when he had walked into the kitchen to see his wife’s limp body swaying in the kitchen. The noose had snapped her neck, separating three disks between the skull and spine. Doctors later confirmed via autopsy that she had died a painless death. They knew nothing of painlessness. He could only blame himself.

Tears streamed down the deep wrinkles across the old man’s face. His chest slowly rose up and down, as the high pitched winds drowned the sound of his sobbing. He had never forgiven himself. The man began to slowly rise, as he hoisted himself onto the concrete windowsill. The man looked at the spot where the seagull had become submerged.  The waves had taken their toll. All that was left was the infinite white foam and dark ocean water. Life was so hopeless. Nature simply has it’s way with things, and there is nothing anyone could do. The lighthouse was his refuge, his escape from a life where everything was his fault. The loss of his wife and son left him without a family for over fifty years. Nothing had ever gone his way, nothing that mattered. The man continued to stare at the water. But then, there was movement, he could see something. It all happened so fast.

The seagull rose from beneath the ocean depth, slowly surfacing out of the water. The man gazed in astonishment as the seagull began to flap its wings, as it completed the transition from water to air. It began to fly. Tears of joy began to trace new lines down the old man’s face. It all became clear. It was never his fault, he had done everything humanly possible to help his family, and nothing more could be done. That was it. It had taken him his entire life to forgive himself for something that wasn’t his fault. Finally, he was at peace.