The Blind Sentinel

The iron lantern rusts against the salt, a hollow eye that lost its spark to time, staring blind into the churning black where whitecaps break like shattered glass against the granite teeth below.

No keeper winds the heavy brass machine, no wick to trim, no oil to feed the flame. Only the wind howls down the spiral stair, a ghostly breath that rattles the locked door and sings a dirge for ships that didn't know.

Yet still it stands, a monument to light, though darkness claims the tower and the tide. The gulls take shelter on the parapet, and wait for morning when the gray returns to wash the ruins in a paler hue.