Below, the waves pounded the cliffs relentlessly. The lighthouse stood high above, not even touched by the spray, impervious to the foaming teeth of a snarling sea. The endless shrug of power was exhilarating and humbling, and even after years of watching it, Lefty still hadn’t gotten tired of it.
He liked the sea. People changed, but the ocean didn’t. Landmasses shifted and reformed, were eroded by wind, time, and man, but the sea was the sea, boundless, blue-green, and unimaginably old. There had been hard times in his life, and standing before the immensity of the sea had help but things into perspective. He had tried to capture the exhilaration of a tumbling wave, the awe-inspiring sense of smallness one got when they were standing unguarded before such immensity, in the dreams he gave to people, but he felt he had yet to perfect it.
The nightmare had disdained the physical plane for the evening, instead preferring to drift along the air, suffused with its salty tang, as light and careless as a summer breeze. This was a good place to chill until he found a real home to stay in. Few people came up here, human or otherwise, and the ragged cliffs and restless breezes kept most vegetation, and most importantly, the spring air--laden with the perfume of flowers--well away from him.
But hark! His solitude was being intruded upon! Someone was coming up the winding path leading to the lighthouse, worn smooth by countless feet and studded with warped trees. He crept along (as far as anything without a body could be said to have crept) and crouched in the shadows of the tall sea-grass, waiting. He’d planned on taking it easy tonight, but if someone was going to come poking up around here, he might as well have fun.
