Keeper of the Tarn Light

You are the relief keeper at Tarn Skerry, alone for the first time. It is the third night of a storm the mainland swore would pass by now. At 2 a.m. the main lamp stutters and dies. The logbook of the keeper before you ends in the middle of a sentence. Every fork below is yours. Read the situation, choose, and live with what the sea does next.

The lamp is out and a trawler's running lights are somewhere off the rocks. What do you do first?

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Whatever you chose, the wind takes the south door off its hinges while your back is turned. Cold floods the stairwell. The spare oil for the lamp is down in the store, and the store is now open to the sea.

Saltwater is rising in the store where the spare oil is kept. Go down for it, or hold the light?

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"
Light is not the job. The job is to be the one who did not leave. The light is only how they know you stayed.
"
from the keeper's log · final legible entry

Dawn is two hours off and the trawler has gone quiet. What do you write in the log?

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On the keepers who stayed

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