I had a dream last night. Vivid it was, clear as day. Clear as you sitting there next to me. There was a boat - that part's plain enough - but we were stranded on dry land, in my garden. Not here, but mine and Mary's house. On the mainland. And the boat was on fire, but we couldn't jump for fear we would drown. So we sat and watched our legs burn slowly, like lamp-wicks.

Doesn't make much sense, but food for thought, eh? It's not as if we have much to do here, other than think. Think about the minutes as they pass. Think about the clouds. Think about the past. All in all, there's too much thinking to be done here, much more than can be good for you. That's why you're here, I expect. A tap on my brain. Something for my thoughts to drip into.

It's about time I told you about Cal, I suppose, and the 'house. The storm and the fall. I can see that you want to hear it, see the itching at the back of your eyes, yearning for me to scratch. Okay. Okay. But be warned - I shan't sweeten the story.

Cal and me, we were the 'house keepers. We always called it the 'house, right from the start, though the sailors call it the light. That was all they ever saw of us, the beam cutting through the darkness, the lonely beacon in a sea mist. The fire we lit to guide them home. But for us, it was the 'house. It was our home.

I forget how long we've been here now. More than ten years. Maybe fifteen, I'm not sure. We tried to measure it, but one day becomes much like another on the rock. The great storm was four years ago, I can tell you that. November, I think. Early December. One of the two. The last great storm but one, I should say. The storm ten nights ago was worse, as I recall. It certainly seemed that way.

Cal. He was a quiet one, our Cal. Liked his solitude, his peace and quiet, always seen with his nose in a book. The supply ship used to bring them over from the mainland for him, although I'm sure he read some of them twice, just as an excuse not to talk to me, a way of retreating into silence. Calum something. That was his full name. Never knew what his surname was, I don't think. Funny that. You live with a man for fifteen years in a 'house that consists of three small rooms, the walls as thick as the room is wide, and you never know the man's name.

We'd seen the storm brewing for days, boiling up out of the waters, out of the skies. You learn what to look for after a while, learn to read the signs. Nature has its own ways of telling you, of trying to warn you and make you safe. Only man would be foolish enough to stand in its way, to build a tower on a rock in the middle of the sea and sit there, praying. And we did pray, when the time came, though neither of us were religious men. The storm does that to you. Makes you clutch for anything that can buoy up your hopes. Keeps you from going under.

I remember putting my ear to the wall, feeling the coldness, the dampness, and then sensing it shudder as another wave hit, feeling the very walls of our 'house tremble under the sea's fist. The boom of the waves echoed through the entire structure, vibrations battering our eardrums, scrambling our sense of direction and balance. For four hours it seemed that nothing else existed on the face of the earth, nothing but us two and our 'house, the rock and the sea, two mortals caught up in an elemental maelstrom of fire, water and rock. Is it any wonder that we called on God, summoned up a deity neither of us believed existed to save us? Is it any wonder that we confessed our sins as nature did its damnedest to tumble us from the surface of the planet?

Eight hours the storm lasted, and when we felt a lull approaching Cal brought up the subject of the boat. It was a half hour trip to shore, but neither of us was prepared to stay on the rock. If the lull lasted long enough, we could make it. It wouldn't be easy, battling the waters first-hand, but we were both willing to take the risk. Anything was better than this waiting, this trembling.

It was decided that I would venture outside for the boat while Cal gathered our gear together, put the 'house in order. That first step outside was the worst, not knowing what to expect, what would face me. Having sat through the turmoil of the storm, suffered its buffetings and boomings, the hardest thing was to stare it in the eye.

What greeted me was both a blow and a godsend. The boat was nowhere to be seen, in all probability ripped apart by the sea and scattered to its depths and shores, but the storm had passed us by, the tail end of it still visible as a grey streak to the west. No longer did we have to do battle with the waves, soak ourselves to the skin and risk our lives for the touch of dry land. For the lull was not a lull at all, but rather the end, the wake.

You severely misunderstand me if you think that I whooped for joy, however, or punched the air. I nodded, and re-entered the 'house. It's the way we do things here. No use in getting excitable.

My calls for Cal fell unanswered as I re-scaled the ladder, but I thought nothing of it at the time. Like I said, he was a quite man. Solitary. It was only when I reached the first of our three rooms that I saw him crumpled at the foot of the ladder, his frame twisted in a manner that could not be construed as natural, a contortion that stank of misery and death.

What had happened became clear soon enough. So like him not to have cried out. So like him to have died in silence, to have passed away with little more than a dull thud in an empty room. Did I weep? No. Did I cry out, scream at God for the injustice, rant at the heavens, at the seas? No. It was not, after all, our way. Stand tall, strong, silent. Like a man. Like the 'house.

I tried to move him, but there was nowhere to move him to. Wherever I placed his jumble of bones he seemed to stare at me, to follow me about the stone rooms, tracing my every hollow step. Deep down, he didn't feel dead at all. His bones were broken, of course, but I was used to the silence, used to having his eyes upon me day and night, even when I thought I was alone.

But being spied on by the living is one thing; being watched by the dead is another entirely. I managed to drag him up to the light platform in an improvised contraption of ropes and a leather harness, but the eyes of the dead can see through walls. I could feel them, crawling across my skin.

It wasn't his eyes that finally forced my exile, however, trying though they were. It was the smell. I didn't notice it at first, what with the briny sting of the sea air, but he made his presence known soon enough. I soon took to avoiding the top two floors, but by the fourth day the lower floor was stench-ridden too. The drone of the flies was almost intolerable for one as used to silence as I.

I can't go back in there now. I dread to think what it will be like, now he has had time to brood, now the stink of his ghost has visited every nook and cranny. The food I brought out with me ran out three days ago, as I'm sure you're aware. You know as well as I that we have lived off air and salt water since then, struggling with consciousness, grappling our own mortal weakness. I tried to prise the barnacles off the rock yesterday, but my knife is still inside and I quit after two fingernails cracked right through to the cuticles. Seaweed only gives me stomach cramps and severe bouts of vomiting that leave me hungrier than before.

I have no doubt that they will send a boat for us, sooner or later. The supply ship was expected yesterday, I think, although they are often late. Maybe I calculated wrong. It feels so cold out here, don't you think? So lonely? It's not so hard to imagine that the storm has washed the rest of the world away and left us stranded, a final divine joke. Only I don't feel like laughing at this divine comedy, somehow.

What's that? Oh, the ships are merely a diversion. I'm not sure I can trust my eyes any more, that those specks on the horizon are not mere phantoms, devils sent to haunt me. I'm sure I must be quite mad by now. The sun has cracked the skin on my head. Punishment for baldness.

I'm not sure I even believe that you exist any more. It was only Cal and I on the rock, as far as I recall. I certainly don't remember your face. Are you angel or devil? What am I being punished for? I prayed the once, when it counted. I believed, when I had to.

Go back to him now. Go back and tell him that I've learnt my lesson, if that's what he wanted. Tell him that the joke is over, he can send the supply ship now. I just want to go back home. I haven't seen Mary in months. Tell him to send the ship.

I'll sit here on the rock and wait. I'll be here, when he comes.

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