He Never Went North

He wrote it in the log instead. Second light, bearing north-northeast, four miles. Persistent after dark. No vessel in distress observed.

Then he closed the book, and he did not go, and for eleven days the light burned and he let it burn.

On the twelfth day the relief keeper arrived early, stood at the rail a long while, and asked Halloran what he was looking at. Halloran turned and saw the man's face, and saw that the boy could not see it, and that was the moment the nineteen years came apart.