Lighthouse Dreams

A Voyage Across the Seven Seas

A Nautical Enterprise
the sign reads.
Sage pushes aside the heavy black curtain, only to find a second on beyond it. For a moment, between the curtains, with the light of the circus stolen away, it is pitch dark. Then she emerges through the second curtain.

Sage stands on a dock, the wood creaking and damp beneath her boots. The dock is suspended over a black expanse of water, under an equally black sky studded with tiny lanterns bright as stars. 

Sage gasps. She has imagined so often in her mind standing by the sea again, it has been too difficult to visit the ocean cities of her travels, for she is always only days behind the circus and it never travels anywhere seaside. Not it is here, within the confines of a tent, smelling of salt and sand. 

The thought appears that the tent may have been created for her.

Tethered to the end of the dock is a ship, a frothy white sale against ebony wood, a rearing black horse the figure head, its glassy black eyes flashing with the undulating starlight. The railings are painted with silver spirals, the deck ringed by velvet benches. The mast is tied with black ropes, they crisscross like a net over the ship, tied around silver knobs on the railing. A gangplank rests against it, awaiting her she makes her way slowly down the dock. 

The ship does not wobble under her weight, it is steady as she climbs in and sits on a white velvet bench.

The ship embarks from the dock of its own accord. It sways gently on the waves as the dock grows smaller and she floats beneath the lantern lit sky.

Before long Sage is alone on the waves, the dock out of sight. She fears if she were to put out her hands she would feel the walls of the tent and the illusion would be shattered, but the ship continues to float in the darkness. Sage peers over the edge of the ship. 

The sea is black as night on the horizon, but misty white around the ship, like waves of melted wax.

On the horizon, rising like a great silver tower, stands a lighthouse. 

The lighthouse shines as bright as the sun, tendrils of ivory rippling on the sea’s calm surface.

Suddenly the sea quivers. 

The water churns, rocking the boat and creating black eddies around the bow. Sage clutches the mast for support, though it sways with the sudden force of the wind. Her hair whips her face, salt sprays her dress.

She has been through rapids, has seen gargantuan waves, but the wave that rises now, blocking out each lantern, fills her vision. She panics as it looms, shuts her eyes and clings to the mast. Yet the impact of the water does not come. 

When she opens her eyes again the wave still looms, but as it does it becomes smaller, and on the horizon the dock is getting bigger, while the lighthouse is fading away. 

The ship nears the dock and when a thud sounds from the side of the ship, the gangplank has been positioned, Sage quickly composes herself and climbs carefully onto the dock. Her knees shake as she stares out across the waves. 

The wave is gone, the sea as flat as glass. Sage hugs her elbows and shivers, looking down at her salt stained gown. She walks briskly up the dock to the velvet curtain, the shape of a looming wave imprinted behind her eyelids, like the wingspan of a great black bird.

Text by Lucie MacAulay