Lighthouse Keeper
The lighthouse keeper took the oil canister and matches;
he climbed up the stairway faster than any other time;
his steps were heard, youngish, fast as if he was climbing up
to the sky. The other looked, with a surprised glance, all around
the walls, the window that looked out to the sea, the wooden
closet, the map, the alarm clock on the table, all faded by
the upcoming night; he took his suitcase and walked out fast,
like a thief, as if he had taken advantage of an unreciprocated
trust and indeed angry as if they forced him to disclose
an unknown and useless responsibility. When the lighthouse
keeper went down, he didn’t find anything. It was getting dark.
He understood. Silence was thicker now, final. He walked out
to the yard and looked from down up his light, that he had just
lighted, the light of the lighthouse. Then he noticed his lighted
hands that were almost golden like the miraculous hands
of old icons, and lissome like the hands of jugglers. However,
at that position, with his hands raised he looked like he
was praying, to whom or what was unknown, to the sea, the wind,
his light? Suddenly he realised that, in this position, he looked
like an actor on stage and he tried to return to his familiar stand.
He clapped his hands as if he was applauding something invisible
or as if he shook off the crumbs of his supper, although he hadn’t
had supper yet. At that moment a rooster crowed somewhere far
away. Who had betrayed him again? What had he betrayed?
No. No. Nothing; and the roar of the sea gave a sense of a general
betrayal. The rooster crowed again. This simply meant a change
in the weather. Spring was arriving soon. And the stars seemed
to be more than yesterday’s stars and brighter.
Libros Libertad 