The Long-Watch Spire

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The spire was old when my grandpa was young, A salt-eaten tooth where the ocean’s tongue Licked at the stone with a pitiless hiss. I was told it was built for the ships in the mist. The beam was my job, to polish and prime, A monotonous duty to conquer the time. But no ships ever came, not a horn, not a light, Just the endless, black water that drank up the night.

The logbooks were filled with my family’s script, Of the lens and the oil and the storms that had whipped. But in Grandpa’s last entry, a page I’d not seen, Was a chart of the sky, not the waters between. It showed patterns of stars that were wrong and askew, With a note in the margin: “It’s looking at you.” He wrote that the spire wasn’t meant for the sea; Its purpose was deeper, for things that will be.

The beam wasn't a warning, a guide, or a sign. It was bait. It was bread. It was chum on a line. A broadcast in light to the cold, cosmic dark, A steady, slow pulse to attract a great shark. The company sends me my pay and my food, But my radio calls are met with a mood Of silence and static, a line that’s gone dead. A new star is burning. It’s pulsing with red.

They’ve stopped my provisions. They’ve cut off my calls. Which means that they know. Past the black, starry walls, Something has answered. It’s followed the glow. My job wasn’t to watch for the ocean below. My job was to be here when contact was made. The first one to greet it. The first one afraid. The light on the lens starts to flicker and fail. And something enormous is blocking the trail of the whale.