Chapter I
And so it came to pass, when all the world had grown dark and the great sadness that had put an end to the trees that grew tall and the forests that grew thick and the orange groves that yielded plump fruit alongside the fields that blessed the eye with the vibrant colors of tulips and dahlias and zinnias, so it was, that during this time of despair, there came upon the shore of a distant land, a young girl who carried a doll.
She came by rowboat without oar or guide, clutching a doll clad in what appeared to be a folk dress made from black, twill cotton, accentuated by an embroidered applique made of red threads that took the shape of birds and trees.
The doll’s hair was blown wild from the wind, bearing a face without smile or frown; dressed in blue shoes made of soft leather bearing a key which hung from her neck on a thick, beaded string. The old man in the lighthouse sighted the child one morning as her boat ran aground on the cobbled beach. He hadn’t time to think through the implausibility of such a sight as a boat carrying a single child to shore, but he hadn’t seen much activity since the Calamity to confirm or question whether such a thing was happening elsewhere.
Altogether, since the Great Tragedy, life had turned bizarre in ways he couldn’t explain.
He bound down the spiral staircase as best he could with a limp leg, calling out to his wife for help as he ran. He arrived at the shoreline in time to rescue the child from the strong tides about to reclaim the boat. The last thing he wanted to do was to frighten her with a sudden movement, so it was his good fortune that she seemed to be in a deep sleep when he lifted her from the boat with a slight jolt.
The old man’s wife wasn’t far behind him in his mission to rescue the dear child from an unmistakable, cruel fate, for the old lady arrived as well, just in time to witness the girl uplifted into the arms of her husband before the boat was snatched clean by the fierce tides, smashing it into pieces, drawing its remains out to sea.
“Let’s wrap her up in this,” the old woman said as she gently placed a blanket about the child. Mr. and Mrs. Barnes were survivors of the Great Storm, followed by the Great Bombardment known as The Calamity.
It’s not known how they survived because, truth be told, they shouldn’t have. They had stowed away in the oil house, unused for generations, with its thick, exterior brick walls and strong metal door supplied with only a bag of sandwiches and one bottled water between them. They held tight to each other. Sam’s pocket watch stopped working. The phone no longer received a signal. Within the walls of the defunct oil house, time took on a unique characteristic; it neither stopped completely nor did it accelerate.
It seemed to be simply resting, as if waiting for a next step.
Above their heads, the sound of war streaked through the sky, claiming both land and water. And that’s when it happened. That’s when they each heard someone saying:
‘Don’t be afraid, it will soon be over.’
A disembodied voice.
Until that moment, Mrs. Barnes had been too frightened to cry and could barely breathe, but when she heard the voice reassure them, normally an event which would have certainly caused distress, yet under the circumstance of anticipating her death or hearing a voice reassure her, she settled and let herself weep uncontrollably, sobbing from her very depths.
The vision of how the great armies bullied and roared and blustered, bloated with their own vanity, their own delusions of self-importance and how this malevolence that had consumed them destroyed imagination was the image before her. And for what reason? So that these senseless armies could pad their already bulging pockets with more money, more things, more houses, cars, boats, planes; what a Calamity, she thought.
It would never occur to them that on that day, an unfinished painting was blown from its canvas. Or a doll ripped from the loving arms of a child or a cherished kitchen table where a family gathered and celebrated their lives together was now without its animation. The Calamity, she thought, was not only a murderer, but a thief.
This destroyer had no regard for anything other than what it could own and what it could control. Mr. Barnes carried the child to the Lighthouse. He was not able to carry her to the top but there was a warm room downstairs, windowed on two sides with a small wooden bed, a desk and a chair. He laid her on the bed and though she appeared to be sleeping soundly, she guarded her doll.
Mrs. Barnes could not imagine that she would ever adjust entirely to the extraordinariness of their lives, so it didn’t surprise her that she was unsure about what to say or do next for the young girl. When the metal door opened, it opened of its own will. Mr. and Mrs. Barnes had fallen asleep during a quiet period and without a watch or a phone or any other means to tell time, they did not know if they’d been asleep for hours, days or weeks. With both dread and anticipation, they made their way toward the open door.
They were alive. At least, for now.
Stepping out into the atmosphere with great courage, Mr. Barnes took his wife by the hand and over the threshold she followed. Though it was dark, their eyes fixed on the horizon in amazement.