The Lighthouse Keeper's Last Winter
The lighthouse stood on the edge of the world, or so it seemed to Thomas Weatherby. For forty-three years, he had climbed its spiral stairs, tended its lamp, and watched the Atlantic hurl itself against the rocks below. Now, in his seventy-first winter, he knew this season would be his last.
The automation crews were coming in spring. They'd written him a polite letter explaining that modern technology could do his job better, more efficiently, without complaint. They didn't understand that he had never complained. Not once in four decades had he begrudged the isolation, the cold, the endless vigilance required to keep ships from the rocks. This lighthouse was not his job. It was his purpose.
