West Liberty University

by Creed Kidney

Harlow woke up, the starkly white ceiling greeting him as it always did;
a crack had begun to run along its face, staring down at him with a toothy smile.
The sound of gulls pierced his senses as their cries floated lazily on the sea breeze.
The house shook a little as the rocky foundation was hugged by the raucous ocean;
the skinny, wooden window frames squealed in fear. He sat up, throwing his legs
down onto the plank floor; he was still in his uniform.

Harlow stretched his arms above him, groaning into the empty room for
nobody to hear or comment on; he brought his hands back down to his lap and
turned his head towards the window. It was sunny today. He thought of his
mother across the bay, she quite enjoyed the sun.

Before picking up his cap, Harlow would undo his brass jacket buttons one at a
time, always starting at the collar and working his way down. He fingered each of
them individually, taking the time to feel their shape and relearn their texture;
they were cold in his thin, long fingers. Once it was off, and his white linen shirt was
exposed for no one to see, he would lay the jacket beside him and rise from the bed,
he would then begin to undo his belt; turning slowly, he would walk to a wooden
chair in the corner of the room to rest his belt against its back. Returning to his
original position, Harlow would then begin to unbutton his pants; they would drop
to the floor in a heap around his ankles. As Harlow stood there in the room in his
shirt and boxers, he felt the cold, salty air kiss his exposed skin; he closed his eyes
as he felt his body awake in a rush of goosebumps. He thought of the girls back
home on the island.

Then he thought of his elder brother, Heller, who got to stay on the island
and work with their father at the post office. He thought of Heller in his uniform,
unlike the one he had just taken off, and what the buttons might feel like; they must be
different, unique. How lucky Heller is. He thought of how all the girls wanted his brother.

Harlow reached for his right wrist; on it, an insignificant rope bracelet.
He pulled it tight against his scarred skin. Quieting his thoughts, he stepped out of
his pants and laid back down on his bed, his hair raising from the chilled, patchwork
quilt. Harlow closed his eyes.

After a few seconds, he opened them again, once again greeting the grinning
ceiling. He threw his legs over the edge of the bed, stretched his arms into the air,
and looked around the room; his jacket had slid off the bed and onto the floor,
beside it was his pants still in a heap. In the corner of his room, his belt lay against
the back of a wooden chair.

Look at this mess, Harlow thought to himself, I ought to be ashamed of myself.

Reaching across his lap, he absentmindedly tightened the cord bracelet further.

*

Sitting at his desk, Harlow wrote in his journal, occasionally adjusting his
cap to look out over the empty, vengeful sea.

Dear diary,

I fell asleep last night in my uniform; Uncle Alistair would be disappointed.
I tried to make up for it as best as I could by going back to bed in my underclothes
and awaking as I normally would; I left my clothes a mess as a consequence to
myself. I let myself get ready after I had tightened my bracelet and made my bed.
For breakfast, I had two eggs and a piece of bread. I will need to make a note of this
next time Officer Walden comes to the lighthouse so I can request the proper
number of provisions. The sea has been quiet today. Captain Dorcha appears to
be docked at Tinneas still from yesterday evening. There must be many bodies
for him to pick up; I hope mother and father are alright.

I thought of the girls on Tinneas today; those that are left at least.
I felt shameful. I had jealous thoughts of my brother, as well. I tightened
my bracelet quite hard.

I must be better.

Harlow

*

After boiling two potatoes on the stovetop, making sure to note the loss in
his supply log, Harlow climbed the winding, wrought-iron staircase to the top of the
lighthouse for the first time that day; seating himself just below the lantern room
on a step near a window that looked out past the gallery, he sat his potatoes beside
him and drew out a small flip-open knife. He looked at it for a moment, rubbing
his fingers along the weathered, mahogany guard; it was a gift from his Uncle Alistair.
Drawing himself away from the thought, he pulled out a small, square cloth
and began to gently wrap one of the potatoes, saving it for later; feeling the
successfully swaddled vegetable in his hands, he sat it down, once again, beside
him and smiled, trading it for its unwrapped counterpart. He then began to carve
away at the potato, peeling away its skin to fall down into the throat of the
lighthouse, and cutting away small slices of the meat for himself to eat.

As he listened to each individual slice, the blade working its way through
the flesh of the vegetable until finally coming back into contact with the palm
of his hand, he remembered the way his father carved away at the turkey on his
fourteenth birthday; his strong hands grasping the large, sharpened knife that
dug into the skin of the cooked bird, he remained deeply focused on his task,
as to not cut one slice imperfectly. After some time, the sound of Harlow’s potato
seemed to be reminiscent of turkey meat; soon after, he found himself sitting
in the dining room of his childhood home. He sat, rather small, at the head of
the table, across from his father, still working on the turkey; behind him, a large
bay window looked out onto a quiet, cobblestone thoroughfare.

His brothers, Heller and Hackett, were seated together to his right; Heller looked
to his father’s work as well, making idle chatter about the post office and how
much mail his father delivered that day. Hackett, the youngest of the three brothers,
sat drowsily in his chair, his elbow propping up his head, as he made lazy circles
with his spoon along the center of his empty plate. Harlow smiled, remembering
it was his birthday and not one of his brothers, and that his parents had made today
extra special for him; he wasn’t sure as to why his fourteenth birthday was any
reason for a turkey dinner, but he wouldn’t dare complain or question.

His mother, coming from behind his chair and out of the kitchen, brought
various other dishes to the table: mashed potatoes, beet salad, and homemade
bread. With each additional plate, Harlow’s excitement only grew. Seeing him grin,
she leaned down to kiss Harlow on the cheek, wishing him a happy birthday.

After his father was finished carving, he sat down to Harlow’s left, across
from Heller and Hackett, with their mother beside him; smiling at one another,
Edda and Landry Haganhai joined hands, reaching to invite their sons to join them
in prayer as they blessed the meal that the Lord had so graciously bestowed upon
them. Their heads bowed, dinner began with a sustained, almost whispered,
“Amen.” Between bites, Harlow would look around at his family as they each enjoyed
their suppers individually and would think of how thankful he was for all of them.
Hackett would occasionally do something rather comical, making everyone at
the table laugh; Heller would tell of his day spent working with a local farmer
or blacksmith, their father would proudly remark about his son and encourage
Harlow and Hackett to try and follow in his stead. Edda would occasionally look
over to Harlow as her husband and other two sons were immersed in some
conversation and speak to him directly, asking him about his day or how he
liked the food, rather quietly, so as not to interrupt the main discussion, but just
loud enough for Harlow to know that his mother would always be there for him.

As dinner neared completion, Edda raised from her seat and went away
into the kitchen, returning with a small, yellow cake, doused in powdered sugar;
sitting it in front of Harlow, his father pulled out one, small candle, and placed it
in the center of the confection. Looking down at the wide-eyed boy, his father lit the
candle with a match and told his son to make a wish. His family looking to him in
anticipation, Harlow filled his lungs with air, closed his eyes tightly, and blew out
his birthday candle, wishing that he would someday work alongside his father in
the island’s post office. As his brothers cheered and his father bent down to tussle
his son’s hair, Harlow found it funny how the lonely, smoking candle reminded
him of his Uncle Alistair’s lighthouse, on the tiny Isle Ghrian.

Harlow recoiled, the scene quickly clouding around him, as he dropped
his potato onto the step below him; reaching for his hand, he realized
he had dug his knife into the meat of his palm.

*

Seated once again at his desk, Harlow looked out to the sea, now
restless and gray, as it spit up at the windows and slammed itself into the
sides of the lighthouse. As he traced the delicate linen lines of his now bandaged
left hand, he thought of how the ocean might feel, how it might toss his weak,
lengthy frame to and fro, how the cold water might crash onto his skin, how it might
awaken his senses, and yet drown everything else in the world out;
he thought deeply on how nice it might be to be consumed by the water’s
terrifying beauty.

The window splintered in front of him, something had hit it; his attention
brought back, he peered deeply at the spidery fragmentation, just strong enough
to keep the window, as a whole, intact. The sea seemed to tease him.

As he began to consider what might’ve been thrown up against the glass,
he caught a glance of Captain Dorcha’s ship out on the water, spotlighted
momentarily by his lighthouse’s circling beacon. The ship rocked back and forth,
up and down, upon the temperamental waves, occasionally being
overcome entirely. Tinneas was barely visible through the pelting rain,
but every few moments he would get a snapshot of a few colorful houses from
his tower’s godly eye. He thought of his family’s little green house on the main
street of town, hoping everything was all right, safe from the weather and the
plague; he thought of his mother and father, Hackett, and Heller.

Just as he began to reach for his bracelet, he heard a loud thump,
seeming to come from above. Quickly spinning around in his chair,
he looked up to the ceiling in anticipation–had something hit the roof? Was it a wave?
The sound had a note of metal though, almost a ting, but more than
anything it sounded like something had hit the lighthouse, perhaps the sea had
thrown something up against the tower. Wanting to investigate, Harlow slowly
began to rise from his chair, his eyes still affixed to the ceiling; with no following
thump, he looked towards the door that would lead him up to the first gallery
of the lighthouse, just below the lantern room. He thought of what his
Uncle Alistair would do, he thought of how he wouldn’t have any fear.
Would Heller be afraid?

With that, Harlow walked slowly towards the door, grasping the iron
handle with his right hand, and turned it slowly; the door sank into the belly of the
lighthouse with a slow screech of its tired wood and aged metal hinges.
The room was dark, except for the occasional orange flicker that would escape
from the lantern room and dance down the walls of the tower. Harlow began
to ascend the stairs, taking his time to find the best footing on each individual step,
and getting to know the storied texture of the winding handrail.

Upon reaching the level of the gallery, Harlow reached out towards
one of the windows, looking for anything that might have been thrown up from
the sea as an offering to the beacon in the chaos of the storm; seeing nothing,
he turned to face one of the last windows, facing north towards Dorcha’s ship.

There was something black on the balcony, resembling seaweed in its moving,
snakelike sprawl; peering closer, Harlow followed the tendrils to what seemed
to be a gray, collapsed mass of some kind. Confused, he prepared himself to
deal with it after the storm’s passing, as he concluded it was most likely just
a mass of some ocean grass; but as he began to make his descent back into
the bowels of the lighthouse, a particular rotation from the lantern seemed to slowly
illuminate the form, highlighting its curvature and design in a soft orange and yellow.

It was a body.

*

Dear diary,

I cut the palm of my left hand open while peeling a boiled potato
for my lunch; I was daydreaming, so the accident was entirely my fault, but now
I have used another piece of the roll of bandages that could’ve been utilized
for something more serious. The potato was good, but my hand hurt very badly.
I pulled my bracelet tight the whole time I was bandaging my wound for my mistake.
I had a second boiled potato for dinner. I wrapped it very nicely; it was very good.

There was a terrible storm yesterday, one like I have not seen in a long while,
at least not since Uncle Alistair was still here with me. A window on the first floor,
looking out towards Tinneas and the sea from the main hallway of the house,
was cracked fairly badly from a particularly strong wave. It is my theory that the wave
picked up a small rock or shell and spit it out like a projectile into the glass.
I’ll need to make sure I mention this to Officer Walden so he can make sure
the necessary arrangements are made to have this fixed.

In the midst of the storm, I saw Captain Dorcha’s ship out on the water,
he must have departed from Tinneas some time when the weather began to change.
A few particularly big waves seemed to overcome his deck completely,
I hope he didn’t lose any cargo.

There is much to do, I hope my hand heals fast.

Harlow

*

Standing in the doorway to his room, Harlow looked down at the girl lying
in his bed; her collar bones exposed from the ill-fitting shirt he had put on her,
he thought about what she might’ve looked like when she was alive.

Her dark hair had mostly dried, pooling down into curls upon the quilt pulled
up over her breasts. Upon her face, a countenance of deep sleep, from her small,
pouted upper lip, to the full, and plush lower; her eyelashes fanned down
towards her soft cheeks, those which rested on her doll-like jaw. She was freshly
dead, a victim of whatever plagued the Island of Tinneas, and a passenger
lost to sea from Dorcha’s grim ferry.

Harlow felt himself grow red from the memory of finding her, naked,
on the balcony of his lighthouse, and how her slender form felt cradled in his arms
as he descended the staircase with her. He remembered dressing her and putting
her in his bed, pulling the quilt up to preserve her dignity. Watching what life
was left in her come back to the surface as she dried and rested.
He thought of touching her.

But then he wondered if his brother, Heller, had known this girl when
she was alive. Had he seen her hair when it was still full of life, framing her delicate
face as it danced to the sea breeze? Had he heard her laugh, her voice?
Did she feel things for his brother like all the other girls did? Did he feel things
for her that Harlow had felt for so many girls before? Did he touch her body when
it was warm and full of pulsing blood? Had they touched each other?

At this, Harlow recoiled into the hallway, slamming the door shut in front of him,
and opting to go check on the lantern room, pulling his bracelet taut against
his skin as he ascended the twisting staircase.

*

“May I call you, Afton?” Harlow asked the girl in his bed.

The girl said nothing in return.

“I think that name suits you quite well.”

Harlow busied himself with his hands as he sat in the corner of the bedroom
on a small wooden chair, occasionally tugging at his bracelet or picking
at his scabbing hand, not knowing what to say,

“You know, they don’t bury people on Tinneas because God told the
elders who settled there that it was a sacred place, hallowed ground, they call it.”

The girl continued to lay silently in bed.

“It’s kind of funny, if you think about it. It’s like God’s testing us
in a way. He leads our families to this island, telling them that it’s a holy place not
to be desecrated, and yet he sends a plague upon our people that kills hundreds.
It’s as if he’s waiting for us to slip up, for us to do something we’ll regret and
go against his promise.”

The sound of waves and the wind rolled over the little house on the sea,
shaking it gently.

“Luckily, we have Dorcha and his crew to ferry the dead away,
but if we didn’t—what then?”

Harlow looked longingly at the girl, his eyes pleading for some kind of answer.

“I guess I’ve never really even thought about where Dorcha takes
the dead, other than simply—away. You were about to find out.”

A beam of sunlight comes flooding into the room from the window
across from the bed, illuminating the dancing dust particles.

“Maybe God is testing me too, or maybe both of us, maybe he wants
to see what we’ll do. It seems like he tried to give you a burial at sea,
but you were stubborn about that weren’t you?”

Harlow chuckled to himself, smiling at the girl in his bed.

*

Dear diary,

Officer Walden has yet to arrive on Isle Ghrian to check in on myself
and the lighthouse this week. To be honest, I’m not sure when the last time was that
I saw Walden, but I know I’m beginning to grow nervous about my supplies.
I’ve been trying to ration them, but it’s been difficult. At least the crack in the
hall window hasn’t gotten any worse.

I haven’t told you this yet, but I’m sharing my quarters with a girl named
Afton who was lost at sea. I’m not sure what to do about her yet, but it’s been
nice having someone to talk to again. I’ve been sleeping in the kitchen on some
blankets so she can have the bed to herself. I think it’s a fine arrangement.

I haven’t changed my uniform since I rescued her, though. I don’t want her
to see me like that. I’m doing my best to respect her, so even getting a change
of clothes from my room has been difficult.

I know I struggle with jealous thoughts of my brother, and I often think
of the girls back home—but now I have a girl here, and perhaps by being
modest, I’m being better than my brother.

Afton is something that Heller will never have.

Harlow

*

Sitting beside the bed in a wooden chair, Harlow held his head in his
hands; he whispered softly so as no one else might hear,
“Afton, may I tell you something?”

The girl laid in silence.

Harlow pulled out his mahogany fly-open knife; flipping the blade to
be exposed, he rubbed the cool metal against an elongated scar
that stretched across the palm of his left hand.

“My Uncle Alistair gave this to me the day after my fourteenth birthday.”

The sea outside the house was empty and cold, churning quietly
under the gray sky.

“When he arrived, my parents called me down from my room to tell
me that I’d be going to stay with him in the lighthouse for a while
to be his apprentice.”

Harlow pulled violently at his bracelet,

“Not Heller or Hackett, but me, I was the one to go and work with my
mother’s brother in the lighthouse. Even though they all knew how much
I wanted to stay on the island and work with my father.”

The girl was silent.

“I know it might be silly, it’s not like he was some skilled artisan
or tradesman, but it was something he loved, something he took pride in.”

Not a single gull cried out, even the sea itself seemed to whisper.

“That’s all I wanted.”

Harlow began to cry softly into his hands as he laid his knife down
upon his thigh, and, for a moment, just a split second, he swore
he felt the girl reach out to comfort him in his moment of weakness.
Raising his head up, he wiped away his tears and sighed deeply.

“But that was six years ago, and Uncle Alistair is gone,
and Officer Walden might never come back, and
I’m not even sure what remains of my family.”

The girl remained buried under the covers upon the bed.

“I have you now, Afton.”

Reaching out, Harlow moved the quilt slightly to expose the girl’s arm;
laying his fingers upon her, he felt his skin awake in a rush of sensation.
He took a moment to exhale as he trailed his fingers down her slender limb,
until clasping his hand with hers.

*

Dear diary,

I have run out of food. It has been weeks now since any sign of Officer Walden
returning has even crossed my mind. I haven’t even seen Captain Dorcha’s
ship again since the night of the storm.

I continue to light the beacon every night, not for any specific reason
at this point, rather than the fact that it is simply my duty.

My love for Afton will keep me alive.

Harlow

*

Entering the room, Harlow slowly closed the door behind him;
looking down at the girl in his bed, he began to undo his jacket’s brass buttons,
making it a point to start at the collar and work his way down. He fingered
each of them individually, knowing full well their shape, remembering how
he learned their texture; they were cold in his thin, long fingers. Once all the
buttons were undone, he let it drop to the floor, exposing his undershirt to the room.
He would then begin to undo his belt, letting his pants fall to the floor in
a heap around his ankles. Stepping out of them, he would move to hang his
belt against the back of a wooden chair in the corner of the bedroom.
Turning slowly, he looked, once again, at the girl in the bed.

Slowly stretching his arms into the air, he slid off his undershirt and boxers,
standing naked before the bed; his skin, a rush of goosebumps,
as the cold air kissed every inch of his exposed body. He thought of his Afton.

His long, thin legs began to carry his gaunt frame towards the bed,
until lying down with the girl. He touched her body, feeling all that was left of her;
she was cold and smooth in his hands. As they laid together, he thought
of his brother, Heller, and how he never felt the form of this girl, never kissed her face,
never touched the very bones of her body.

Reaching across her frame, he pulled at his bracelet for one last time.

Snapping, the lovers laid to rest.