Soliloquy

There are discoveries of such importance, of such weight, of such emotional density, that they overwhelm the rational mind and confound the capacity of language to communicate. They leave an individual awestruck, dumbfounded, without so much as a moment to pick up the pieces before those pieces are irretrievably swept away in the wake of a newfound and terrible knowledge.

My life is lost in the ruin of my youth and in the wreckage of half-remembered images intimately associated with the lighthouse in which I was raised. The Keeper of the lighthouse raised me. He was stooped with age, white haired and bearded, with furtive eyes sunken deep beneath his forehead. Although I lived in solitude with the Keeper, we seldom spoke. I learned what I could of the world through his books.

I spent most of my time wandering the rocks of the island, or gazing out to sea from atop the lighthouse. Occasionally I clambered down the cliff to stroll along the beach. The debris washed ashore never ceased to fascinate me.

There were evenings when the fog rolled in as thick as wool. I would stoke the fire for the bellows, and the Keeper would tend the wick of our great lamp that revolved above the night. Every so often the foghorn would bellow out to unseen wayfarers, warning them off the rocks.

On one such night the Keeper was nowhere to be found. I stoked the fire, and set the lamp aright, and then went up and down the lighthouse searching for him. His cabin was empty, but as I turned to leave I noticed something unusual. On his desk, beside the pen and paper, I spied a curious object wrapped in blue silk. Unwrapping it, I found it was a pack of cards. But these were no ordinary cards. They were drawn and painted with extraordinary colors and designs, possessing an attention to detail that I scarce imagined possible for the human hand to achieve....