Clearing Fog

Jan. 1. 1796. This journal I will attempt to keep each day is how I will record my progress. De Grat and I had previously agreed upon this as I will write in it as often as possible. However, I will likely not write every consecutive day throughout the year in which I am scheduled to live in this lighthouse. Many things could happen to a solitary man remotely placed as I. Sickness might descend on my physical being or possibly worse. There is a storm set to pass in not too many days. I have never experienced a true ocean storm this close to the sea. The Cutter in all of its strength had been toiled by a segment of this predicted onslaught. The Cutter is my first task assigned to me: the maintainer of the lighthouse. It is a ship coming from the South oceans that is to come and carry out whatever the business may be that it came to pursue. I am to signal that its dock lies here.
Jan. 2. Aside from my tasks, I am fairly angry towards De Grat. I positioned for the lighthouse duty and only received notification that I had been assigned to it much later. I am a nobleman! No nobleman should have to wait for the second party to consider all of its options before choosing him! Although I am still quite cross about such a matter, at least I was awarded the job when I could have been passed over Just as easily.
One other matter is also nipping at my mind. I was to have a partner at this lighthouse with me. However, he resigned just recently leaving no time to find another partner to accompany me. I am alone. There will be no civilization for one year. This is one of the simpler reasons for my coming here. I wished to escape society for this single year and enjoy solitude in all of its glorious silence. This, I relish the thought of.
Jan. 3. Walking about the lighthouse is being quite helpful in these first days. I am learning the small architecture with every detail in mind. I can observe a larger brick there or an older step here all the while appreciating where I will live for this period of time. The walls echo some, however. I realize that the lighthouse is completely sturdy in its being, yet I still ponder.
Jan. 4. The lighthouse has been around for a good while and I can hear it moan every time a foot falls. The structure is completely sound, but I often wonder if I were to step and the stair break through, what would become of me. Laying as a mangled and disfigure shell at the bottom of the narrow cylinder, would I spend the rest of my days regretting taking that step? ... Or would my existence be better off if I were to simply drift into the fog and never wake up for some unlucky soul to pity many years later? Nothing is clear to me right at this moment as the structure continues straining under my weight. The air inside is stale and paused, yet the mist out on the sea is ever playing tricks and shifting continuously. Shifting and churning like a white curl at the top of one of the never ending swells, the air moves in a monotonous way.
I wonder if there is such a thing as true peace. Coming here, I relished the thought of solitude. However, it feels more and more like I’m making my own company. I simply wish to be alone with or without myself, if I will be a bother. The silent gulls caw, the still waves crash and I am here as if the world can go on without noticing my absence. Let them caw and crash and continue forward, for I am alone, and I enjoy staying at the very edge of civilization. So I do tell myself, in order to retain the calm that I covet so, that there is peace, everything else just tries to convince me otherwise to enjoy a good laugh.
Jan. 5. Morning has arrived carrying odd omens. I suppose that’s what you would call them, for they are not bad nor good, just odd. For one, a low and plain mist has settled on the water giving the appearance of true stillness. Mist gives deception and this particular mist is all throughout my mind. We could be floating miles above the ground in a darkened cloud, or we could be standing in the middle of an underground cavern once used for ancient purposes that still has the smoke from various unheard of rituals long ago. My mind is clouded with confusion as well. Some hours, I feel like I am with annoying company that will not cease, and others, I find it hard to rest easy because I’m so alone. Mist, I dare say, is the probable very existence of confusion.
Another bothersome inconsistency is that the sun shines directly through from above giving a tan – like appearance to the surroundings. I am clouded with mysteries that can’t be solved; yet sunlight will still make itself known. I decide to take this as a good thing so that I may retain my sanity throughout this endeavor. I suppose there will always be positive energy to make the dark known, for without dark, there can be no light to shine its way past. This only strikes me as odd because I am beginning to long for movement. Also, I have been keeping track of my own time and have come to realize that all is not going at all well. The Cutter has made no appearance to be known and is now close to three days late making us wonder if there was some technicality that I am unaware of…
Jan. 7. So now here I am stranded with a precariously close to crumbing lighthouse that could give and crush me any moment. In better detail, I will explain why I have ceased to write an entry for the past few days. Allow me to start when I saw the Cutter finally pass by. The morn of the sixth was completely clear and a gale force wind was tearing across the surf. The winds came from the East where I first viewed a small, grounded object. I sat and waited for it to come within grasping distance. The object didn’t move an inch from where it had started. From the very few things I had brought to entertain myself this journal including, I have a looking glass. It is not much, but it was my late father’s and it can see the way to the object in the East. The strange object turned out to be none other than the very ship I was to signal at noon three days ago, broken in two on a shallow reef. Past, however, I saw an even more disturbing sight. Far past the wrecked Cutter, towering storm clouds had loomed traveling this way. With my information gathered, I could infer that the storm would be nasty and nasty enough still, to wreck the streamline Cutter. I was going to be in for quite an unnecessary excitement of the very sort I planned to avoid by traveling out to this remote location.
The squall came in full force and all I could do was quiver in the very bottom corner of the lighthouse praying and regretting for my past faults. Seven- meter swells hammered the structure for two days all the while attempting to tumble the lighthouse. The tempest only gave way this morning and I can only hope that the small towns along the coastline don’t get as badly shaken. Many bricks are loose from the walls and if looked at from some distance away, I’m sure that it has acquired a westward lean. A nervous mind only contributes to the current mist still enveloping us. However, as the storm cleared, I can only help but think that my fog is passing as well.
Jan. 16. Today I woke up with the most horrendous headache probably inspired by staying up for two straight days in fear of actually being crushed under the weight of toppling stone and water. Attributed to the headache, my mind filled with fog once again…
Jan. 19. Silence… Silence is so nice in these conditions. I have recently returned Neptune to his kingdom in the sea. It was easy enough just tossing him off and watching as he slowly sank. We haven’t had a single swell since. I awoke once again asking for true silence and now it’s finally here. The silence is actually here! And the strangest thing happened today, it all made sense. I’m not sure what it is, but it all makes sense now. Why the squall swept us over, why I’m even here in the first place. It just all makes perfectly clear and crisp sense.
Feb. 24. I am losing my sanity and I know it. However that means that I am not totally lost yet… I can still come out of the thickening fog; I just am oblivious as to how.
July. 3. The most incredible event happened today. A boat had come and docked at my port that is sufficient, but leaves a lot to be desired. They had come to check if I was dead yet. Can it be true? Have the outsiders… I suppose that’s what I‘ve been calling them, lost hope that I could still be sane? Well I’ll tell them that I’m as sane as ever and let them leave. All will be absolutely fine by the time it’s over. The lighthouse has become like my home. I will be sad to leave it when my time here is finished.
Sep. 18. This morning, the last storm rolled by signaling the end of the summer season, I am not sure why I know this, but it will all be fine, just fine, you’ll see. In fact, I will stop writing here for a time and see how life goes on. We can fare alone just fine without you, you were always a third wheel after all. We wont miss you at all.
Dec. 39. Okay, fine we have forgiven the gulls and you for disturbing our solitude. Well, I’ll be out soon enough, so I won’t need you after this. I only kept you this long to retain sanity. I have plenty, thank you. Oh I’m so polite now as well. I suppose it’s the result of thinking all the day through and connecting all my dots. Which reminded me that beginning today, I will write my will. I figure that if I do it now, I will have something less to worry about when I’m elderly. So I will now present this since you’re such a nice pal to have around, and I take back what I said about being a third wheel. So,

As of your reading this, I’m very likely dead. If not, don’t continue. Otherwise, I leave my possessions to my father who helped me through my childhood. If he’s not within the government’s good eyes, you can find in plot 7G in the WoodHelm Oaks Cemetery. That is all, thank you all for your elongated time but my father was the only person I could think of to entrust with my worldly possessions.
- Signed, Me

I will likely die sooner rather than later however, so it seems fit to prepare. After all, the previous caretaker was killed on the spot for embracing insanity. I have nothing to fear, however.
Dec. 1. I can see the sails coming towards my location now. It seems that the conclusion of my journal is a bit different than originally expected. Through my looking glass, I can see that they have a prepped gallows on the deck. I was insane after all, and I can only now contemplate that as death stares me in my eyes. This will be my final entry. On January 1, One year after craving the solitude that I had already acquired, I will perish as another victim of insanity.

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