The Night the Light Went Out.

It was a wet, blustery night in the north of New Zealand. We sat huddled around the wood range which was struggling to burn damp wood. We supplemented this meagre heat with woollen blankets and grumbled about the storm. The storm had put the electricity out and the room was lit by candles. The grandfather clock bonged eerily in the back ground. It was a night made for telling stories and Billy McCormick was a man for telling them. He had got his car jammed into a mud ditch on the twisting country road and knowing us, had climbed a stile and arrived on our doorstep.

"You think this is a storm?" he asked scathingly. We looked at him patiently, expectantly. Obviously it was a storm. He had thought it a storm enough to forsake his car until the morning.

"This is no storm. Not compared to the storm, or rather, I ought to say THE storm we had in my country when I was a boy. That was a bad night, alright." He flicked his eyes at the whisper of steam creeping from the teapot spout. "Seems to be boiling," he noted sternly. "Seems silly to boil it ALL away."

Somebody took the hint and soon we were all clutching mugs of tea. Billy McCormick unwound his legs from under his blanket and stuck his boots into the open oven. Then he began.

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There once was a small factory town by the name of Boggledeboogle that perched upon cliffs that dropped to jagged, biting rocks. At the highest point of the cliffs, above the most biting line of rocks, stood a light house. It was an extraordinary lighthouse. It had a hugely powerful beam that was so luminous, in addition to saving ships, it also saved lighting bills in the factory town. People simply installed black out shades. It was all very convenient. When they wanted light, they opened their curtains. When they wanted dark, they closed them. "Who wants to bother with the fuss of lighting candles," they grumbled. "Too much hassle and all that wax dropping everywhere. Much better to let the lighthouse do its job."

Which was odd, because the factory that supported the town was actually a candle factory. The people were always making candles, but never lit them.

Then one night there was a storm. Such a storm as you never saw in your life. An enormous bolt of lightning came rushing down from heaven and smashed into the lighthouse. Unfortunately, it was a wooden lighthouse. For a moment, that lighthouse was the most luminous lighthouse that ever existed in all the history of lighthouses. And then that moment passed and in the morning there was nothing left but a horrible, wet pile of charcoaled beams.

It caused considerable concern. "Well, this is vexing," said the people. "No more light for free! It's a scandal and someone ought to do something about it!"

"We will write to the governor," said someone. "And tell him to fix our lighthouse immediately. In the meantime, I suppose we will simply have to go to bed when it gets dark. So they wrote to the governor, but election year was a long way away and in any case, Boggledeboogle did not hold a great many voters. So the nights continued to stay black. "it's not our fault he never wrote back," grumbled the people as they went to bed at 6 pm.

Occasionally, they would wander out and look at the pile of rubble which had once been their lighthouse. "What a nasty mess charcoal and salt spray make," they said. "It's a disgrace, you'd think someone would have fixed it by now!"

But nobody did and as the days shortened, they had to go to bed even earlier than 6 pm.

Then one night, there was another storm. "This is the most annoying thing ever," said the people. "Once we would have had a nice cosy light to enjoy, but that's long gone. What a pity, what a pity, you think someone would do something!"

But the people were wrong. The storm was NOT the most annoying thing ever. The most annoying thing ever was what washed up on the beach the next morning. There were thirty-seven sailors wearing enormous lifejackets led by a furious Captain Steel. "Oh ho, so it's a big hilarious joke is it, to not light your lighthouse lamp on such a foul night?" he bellowed as he danced about with rage. Behind him, the thirty-seven sailors also began dancing with rage.

"It wasn't a joke," replied someone coldly. "Our lighthouse burned down and no one has arrived to fix it. You can't imagine how awful it is to have to go to bed earlier and earlier."

Captin Steel opened his mouth. Then he shut it with a snap. His eyebrows boggled out, his mouth opened again and he swore. "You pack of acified sea gherkins!" he shrieked. "Do you mean to tell me that you think lighthouses exist to light private homes!?"

"Cause we do!" said the people.

"You heard of morons! You twizzling, tiddly twerps! bellowed the Captain. "Your economy is based on a blasted candle factory, and you think you're hard done by because your lighthouse has gone out!?"

"We never use candles, much too messy," said the people coldly. "And as for the lighthouse, fixing it simply isn't our job. We didn't put it up. We didn't take it down. It was there, it isn't now and that's nothing to do with us."

"Now you listen," said Captain Steel, with an awful, angry smile. "You listen to me. I'll no more endanger my men by bringing a ship to collect your candles for export. And I'll see that every other captain does the same. You get some light up on that coast or you'll never trade again. If it wasn't for our exceptionally powerful lifejackets, we'd all be arriving at various afterlife destinations."

Apparently, Captain Steel had some clout in shipping circles, because that really was the end of trade in the fair town of Boggledeboogle. People didn't starve. They had their gardens and their fishing and their seaweed tea. But it was awfully boring to feel so completely ignored by the entire world.

"We've become irrelevant," complained the people. "Ever since our lighthouse went down, nobody pays us any mind at all."

Eventually, even seaweed tea lost its appeal and the people became very cranky indeed. "I suppose," muttered a complete maverick, "we could...we could try and restore the lighthouse ourselves."

A snort of derision started and then stopped. "What a wild idea!" said the people. "But I suppose we COULD fix the lighthouse ourselves. Let's go and have a look at it."

It was not an attractive sight. Nasty, dangerous charcoaled remnants fluttered from rusted nails.

"Ghastly," grumbled the people. "High time we did something."

So at long last, they began to do something. And as is often the case when people do something, news got around. One morning, as the people stomped along the grass to their lighthouse, they saw a figure in a bureaucratic suit holding a briefcase waiting for them.

"Who is in charge?" asked the suited figure when they arrived.

"We all are," said the people proudly. "We are restoring our lighthouse."

In that case," said the suited figure coldly, "I must fine you all. This structure you are building is fundamentally unsound. The foundations have been exposed to a great deal of salt spray and can't support a structure of this height."

"Now see here," shouted the people, "these foundations are four hundred years old!"

"I am well aware of that," snapped the inspector. "I graduated top of my lighthouse history class. But the sea water of this coast is reactive to the limestone foundations and you've left them uncovered too long."

"What are we supposed to do?"

"Restore the foundations first, then rebuild your lighthouse," said the inspector. "Or rather, pay the fine for unauthorized restoration first, then do the rest."

When he was gone, everyone felt very glum. "The job is a great deal worse than we thought," said the people. "It could take a hundred years to restore what we lost. We will begin the work, but who knows if we will ever have light in our lifetimes again?"

There was a long, sad silence. Then someone spoke, "we may not see a great lighthouse again in our time, but if we restore the foundations, our descendants will. And as for us, it is time to start filling our homes with light. It is time to stop relying on one great light house. It is time to light the small candles that we all own."

And that is exactly what they did. In the day they worked on the lighthouse and in the evening all the people along the coast of Boggledeboogle dug candles from drawers and boxes and cupboards and lit them and put them in their windows.

The coast did not gleam as brightly as it had when the lighthouse shone, but somehow, I think those individual candles made the homes brighter than the great light ever had. Trade began to slowly trickle back.

"No matter how long it takes," said the people, "we will restore our great lighthouse. But never again will we neglect to fill our own homes with light."

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Billy McCormick abruptly pulled his boots out from the oven and stood up. "Time for bed," he said. He began to move in the direction of the guest room.

"Billy," we called, "is that a true story? Did it happen?"

Billy turned and shot us a piercing glance. "It's a true story not because it happened but because it's happening. Great lighthouses are going out all around us."

"And are people lighting candles in their homes?" we asked.

"That remains to be seen," said Billy. He entered the guest room and shut the door.

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The grandfather clock strikes midnight. The fire creeps down to a sulky glow. The candles gutter in their stand and the storm rages on. It is a time for telling stories and you are the one to tell them.

The End.

The Night the Light Went Out is the intellectual property of R.M. Hamilton and no part of it may be reproduced without written consent. The photos are generously provided by Pixabay. The emojis come from a tremendously fun website called emojipedia.