Into the Light- Lost in Translation

by Michael White

  He struggled again, this time his back hitting something upright behind him. He was not sure what it was, but this time he was definitely sure that it most certainly was not grass or a plant! He groaned, realising he could hardly see at all. He felt that it was as if he had stared directly into the sun, blinding himself! He could just about make out vague shapes somewhere around him but he could not focus on what they were. It was then that he realised that the storm seemed to have stopped. It became slowly obvious that he was now surrounded by almost total silence, broken only by what sounded like a loud creaking sound coming from somewhere nearby.

  Slowly he backed himself up against whatever it was he was leaning on, shifting his weight so that the wall or whatever it was supported him. He pulled the hood from his head, carelessly tearing at the straps that held it there. All that he could now hear was just the wind howling from somewhere nearby and the creaking sound that had an almost rhythmic quality to it.

  His vision began to slowly clear as if whatever it was that had flashed in front of his eyes temporarily blinding him had begun to fade. The memory of the lightning came into his mind and his heart skipped a beat. Surely not? He shook his head carefully and his whole body felt as it had been subjected to a prolonged violent beating. He squinted down at his feet and gave a gasp as he could just about make out his legs splayed out in front of him.

  Smoke appeared to be rising in small grey clouds from his walking boots.

  Chapter Two

  “Not in Kansas any More”

  Paul shook his left foot, then his right. It was definitely smoke rising from his boots. Small plumes of grey soot followed his foot as he waved it in the air. His feet, as much as he could tell, felt warm too. Yet his vision was still impaired by what appeared to be a blinding light, but at the same time he also felt that it was slowly receding. He moved his head from left to right and noticed that if he faced away to his left side then his vision was a little better in that direction. He looked down at his leggings and noticed that although they were still soaked by the rain thin clouds of smoke rose from them too. He pushed back against what may have been a wall that he was apparently leaning on and tried to stand, but to no avail. He felt as every bit of strength had been sucked from him, and he slumped despondently back to the ground, feeling completely useless.

  What was going on? He turned to the left again where his vision was better and what appeared to be several large planks of wood swum into view. He squinted harder, concentrating now. Barrels. Yes. They were definitely barrels. What on Earth were a set of barrels doing in the middle of a moor in the Lake District? He thought that perhaps they were something to do with a local farmer, but then he dared to turn his head upwards, defying the dizziness that threatened to send his chin to his chest, and gasped. Oak beams ran from the far side of what was apparently one side of the room to the other. It looked like a roof. How did he get indoors?

  He thought that perhaps he had been struck by lightning after all and maybe someone had moved him here to get him out of the rain. He was desperate to find an explanation that fitted.

  “Anyone there?” he shouted, and he heard his voice echo around what was definitely some sort of room. Yet there was no reply. He tried again, and then a third time, louder on each occasion.

  Nothing.

  Suddenly inspiration hit him and opening a Velcro sealed pocket he grabbed his mobile phone from his pocket and unlocked it, checking the screen for a signal. Nothing. No signal at all. Though this did not surprise him. It was as he had expected, the Cumbrian moors after all were hardly resplendent with mobile phone masts, though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Returning his phone to his pocket he remembered then the voices he had heard just before he was presumably struck by lightning.

  What was it that the voice had said? Just before the lightning struck. It sounded very much like the soft Irish lilt that the impossible woman had spoken in. What was it she said again?

  “Don’t touch the water.” was the first thing, but what water? He certainly could not see any nearby neither here nor out on the moor where he had heard the voice. Apart from the rain that had been falling down on him there had been no water at all, though he had little chance of avoiding that. What else had he heard in his mind? Ah yes. “Well now.” she had said, and it had been the last thing she had said. What the hell was that meant to mean?

  Paul closed his eyes for a few minutes, allowing himself to relax and when he opened them he was already looking to the left where the light seemed to be much fiercer. He examined the barrels. He could now focus on the wooden floor on which he was sitting as well as at least twenty barrels stacked against the far wall. The room appeared to be circular in that direction, and so he slowly closed his eyes, avoiding looking straight ahead and looking sharply to the right this time. It looked like a mirror image of the view on the left; the barrels there were neatly stacked against a circular wall. He closed his eyes and moved his head to look straight ahead where the light seemed to be fiercest but this time instead of looking directly ahead he looked at the floor just beyond his boots. More wooden floorboards. He concluded therefore that he was in a circular barrel lined room. Perhaps he was in some kind of farmer’s store for the winter? He held back the thought of what was in the barrels and raise his head a little more directly in front of him. As he did so the light burning his eyes increased once again, and he was forced to close his eyes, the glare burning into his eye sockets even with his eyes closed.

  Sighing to himself he turned to his left again and looked at the barrels once more. Despite the light from his right side his vision had improved a little more, and now he could see that just beyond the barrels and further around the circular room. A bright shaft of sunlight broke across the wooden boards nearby from what looked like it may have been a doorway leading outside the room. Grunting to himself he forced his legs to move and began slowly to half crawl, half roll towards the sunlight. He reasoned that if he could see where he was he may be able to get some help, or at least get a signal for his mobile telephone.

  As he crawled past the barrels he cast his eyes now to his right where once again the fierce light blinded him, and so he turned away from that, concentrating on the doorway which he was now slowly approaching. As he did so he noticed a gap amongst the barrels that lined the wall and a large vertical wooden beam running up the wall. Groaning as his body protested against every movement he edged towards the beam, and when he reached it wedged himself between it and the barrels beside it on either side.

  With an effort that made his head swim he rose slowly, first to a crouch and then finally upright, clinging to the upright beam and balancing himself between the barrels, his head reeling as he did so. Nausea threatened to pull him back to the ground, but he took several deep breaths and felt the blood rushing back to his feet. Slowly but surely he began his first step away towards the door and was surprised to find that by steadying himself against the stacks of barrels that now continued around the circular room he could actually begin to make some progress towards the doorway.

  Still however the fierce light burned his vision if he dared to turn his head towards the centre of the room and so he avoided doing so, concentrating instead on the sunlight that burst through now what he could make out to be a small wooden opening in the circular room. There was a wooden frame around the opening and he half stumbled, half threw himself towards it, grabbing the nearest upright to steady and pull him through the opening. The sunlight from outside was strong and he had to dip his head, but he was surprised to see that a small wooden parapet with a wooden handrail at just below waist height ran around the outside of the room, disappearing out of view in both directions. Blinking in the fierce sunlight and holding his breath, Paul staggered out onto the parapet and grabbed firmly hold of the wooden rail to steady himself, waiting for his vision to clear.

  The air hit him instantly. There was salt in the breeze as if carried inland from the sea. There was too the smell of pine and sweet flow
ers from somewhere close. Paul breathed in deeply and filled his lungs with the warm, sweet air. Instantly he felt better and his eyes slowly began to focus on the view that revealed itself before him.

  He grasped the handrail tightly, noticing at first as he looked down that he was not on the ground. Most definitely not on the ground. A sheer round tower that seemed to be made entirely of wood fell down below him, a sheer drop that made his head swim. Clutching the wood even tighter he estimated that he must be at least one hundred and twenty feet in the air, the thin wooden tower curving off in the direction of the parapet on both sides. He had never been terribly fond of heights, but the realisation of exactly how high up he was forced him down to a crouch, both hands grasping the wooden rail tightly. Slowly he raised his eyes beyond the tower and gasped as he took in the vista before him.

  To his left he saw the sea rushing against a golden sanded beach, yet the waves broke on fierce looking needles of stark black rock just beyond the shore, the headland disappearing away around the corner of the tower which stood atop these needles of moss covered stone. Across the shore several spars and upturned keels of what looked like wooden ships jutted up from the seabed against the rocks, the sea rushing amongst the long abandoned wrecks, crushing the wood against the cliffs. To his right he saw the beach give way to savannah grass and shrub land before finally settling into green fields, drumlins and small streams leading off straight ahead of him as far as he could see.

  The sky was a deep blue and tentatively he edged along the walkway, looking to the horizon. A huge range of snow covered mountains crossed the green plains there, impressive ranges of stone and ice rising mightily into the air, obscuring the landscape that lay beyond. Below his feet a small path meandered almost lazily away towards the mountains, eventually fading from view behind a large set of rolling green hills.

  He gasped. It could not be real. It just could not be real.

  Yet the handrail he was hanging desperately on to certainly felt real enough in his hands. He ran his fingers along the smooth wood and felt its warm flat grain beneath his fingers. He hit a rough patch of a knot in the wood and tested it to the touch. Again, it felt real.

  And yet. It could not be.

  Where was he? What was he doing up here? There were endless questions he could not even begin to answer, or indeed to actually realise that there was a question in the first place.

  Paul gasped. There were certainly no mountains of that size anywhere in the Lakes District, or in all of the United Kingdom!

  They were magnificent, dominating the horizon like a border of stone and snow that defied all to pass them. Where the hell was he? He edged further along the parapet, his senses reeling if he was stupid enough to look at the ground far below him. As he moved around the platform that was suspended around the tower he looked up and saw what appeared to be a large circular crystal jutting out of the top of the tower. He glanced away quickly as fierce light burst from the huge glass construction in tightly guided beams. Moving further along the platform he saw that steep cliffs and needles of stone fell down below him to the sea, and then another opening appeared in the all that led back into the room in which he had first found himself. This door, he decided, must be on the exact opposite of the opening he had originally left the room through on the other side of the tower. With one last glance at the spectacular mountain range in the distance he peered through the opening towards the fierce light that burnt almost blue inside the room and finally he realised what the tower was.

  He was in a lighthouse! The searing blue flame inside the room flew upwards, feeding the crystal that shot the beams away across the cliffs and the sea. Smiling he entered the room again and began to walk in a circle back to where he first found himself. His primary thoughts were now not just where he was, but also why anybody would rescue him and place him at the top of a lighthouse? Not only that but he knew for certain that Cumbria had no cliffs that bordered the sea such as this, and certainly no lighthouses either!

  He was halfway around the room when a small opening with accompanying handrail rose from the floor before him, and he glanced down into the hole, seeing thin wooden steps curving down into the tower below him. At least now he knew that he had a way down! He looked then at the barrels that lined the entire wall space, no markings being on them at all. As he glanced at the brilliant azure light carefully he saw a wide circular gutter encircling the room itself, from which the oddly coloured flames rose, bouncing up and illuminating the crystal at the top of the lighthouse. He had never seen the like of this before - it was the strangest lighthouse he had ever seen!

  It was then that he noticed one of the barrels against the wall seemed at an angle, and as he approached it he could see that it had no lid. Approaching it and standing on tip toes he peered inside, and saw it was half full of what looked like black shining powder, not dissimilar to what he guessed that a barrel of gunpowder would look like. Reaching inside, his back aching as if he had been punched there as he did do, he reached inside and scooped out a small pile of the black powder and sniffed it. It smelt vaguely of salt and something else. He accidentally let a few grains flow through his fingers and as they hit the wooden decking of the floorboards they crackled and fizzed, bright blue sparks dancing about the floor as they hit it before disappearing without any trace of smoke at all.

  Very, very carefully he placed the remainder of the powder back in the barrel and tip toed almost reverentially away from it. He paused briefly, unsure what to do next, and so returned to the parapet, exiting the light room through the space in the wall and examined the mountains that rose in the distance. He gasped as he did so.

  “Where the hell am I?” he said to himself, leaning against the railing, gripping the rail firmly with both hands to stave off his dizziness as he noted once again the distance to the ground. He screwed his eyes tightly shut and then slowly opened them again.

  Nothing had changed at all.

  He allowed his eyes to roam from the mountains across the rolling fields and then towards the cliffs that the lighthouse was perched upon, finally the scrublands and then the golden sand that ran down to the sea off to the northeast. It was then that he realised the one thing that had been niggling in the back of his mind but he could not quite put a finger on. There were not only no roads or signs of houses or farms or any form of habitation anywhere; there were no people either.

  As far as he could see he was totally alone. Yet who had built and lit this lighthouse?

  He edged carefully back from the handrail and moving slightly around the parapet made to look out to sea. Seeing nothing he slipped down into a sitting position, his back against the wall of the lighthouse, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks far below. He felt that he was paralysed by indecision. Where would he go now? He had no idea whatsoever of where he was, or where help could be found to get him back to where he had come from. His stomach rumbled slightly and he suppressed an urge to panic as he realised that he was hungry and thirsty too. Yet he had very little with him that counted as provisions. He searched through his waterproof pockets and found a bar of chocolate. Hastily unwrapping it he scoffed it immediately, but it hardly helped. He knew that soon he would be hungry again.

  He continued to lean against the wall and looked up at the clouds scudding across the bright blue sky, watching their progress until slowly he began to feel his head drooping and so he closed his eyes, the sun beating at his closed eyelids. From somewhere he summoned the thought that if it continued to get any warmer than he would have to remove his waterproofs, but it was only a dim thought as slowly but surely he began to fall asleep, his last thoughts before he slept were that that soon he would wake from this dream and be back home. Surely it was only a matter of time - perhaps he was in a coma or some medically induced sleep? Perhaps he was just dreaming? Perhaps.

  ***

  With a start Paul opened his eyes. He panicked as he struggled to remember where he was, and then it hit him that he did no
t actually know where he was or indeed anything about his current situation at all. The third thing was that dusk seemed to be falling. Standing and shaking cramp from his legs he hauled himself up to the handrail and looked out over the fields below.

  It was all still exactly as he had seen it before. Everything in the same place, not changed at all. It looked just as real as before and just as mysterious. He did not recognise any landmark anywhere that he cared to look.

  Already the mountains had faded into the approaching night. He searched the hills and fields for any sign of life; a light in a farm or the like, yet he found nothing. Nothing at all. Failing to find any signs of other people he turned his attention instead to examine the star studded sky that was above him. He was no astronomer but he did like most people know how to pick out several of the constellations. In vain he searched the skies for Orion, the Great Bear. The North star. Nothing at all was familiar to him. Denied even this he sighed deeply and turned his attention to the sea.

  Where at last he saw a light out on the ocean, moving with the passage of the waves. His heart beating faster he half scuttled, half ran around to the part of the parapet that afforded him the best view of the sea. As he did so he saw several more lights and he squinted into the darkness to make out what they were.

  It was at that moment that the beams from the crystal held in the lighthouse above him swung across the cliffs and headland, falling briefly upon the lights that bobbed across the waves. As they did so Paul finally saw that a small ship was rounding the headland, the lights being those attached to both the stern and bow of the vessel. He only had a momentary look at it, and then it faded into dusk again, but now he knew where to look. It was as if he was joining up the dots of what it was that he was trying to see.