the end

The lighthouse keeper came to say goodbye. He hugged me as we parted, and I felt as if I had known him always, that he was my dear old friend. The boat was crowded now - the birders were headed home, the relatives who had come for the weekend were going back to the mainland. When last sun set I stood outside on the deck, staring back in the direction of the place I had come from. The darkness came creeping, blurring the edges of the land and water into a continuum of greys. The winking of the lighthouses brightened in turn, and the boat sailed forward towards the end.