SHORT STORY: The Lamplighter

A very short story inspired by a piece of artwork I saw earlier today. Beware the Lamplighter...

The Lamplighter
By Patch Middleton

Creeping through black streets, fingers bent all four joints, the Lamplighter makes her way. Her cloven feet tap between the cobbles like an old woman chewing with wooden teeth. She reaches the corner, raises one of her many thin arms and ignites the paper. Blue flames flicker, then green, then yellow, reaching up in their glass prisons. This lamp is lit.

But the clock ticks further. She must press on. Half the town is left to do, and the evenings here are not that long. Her skirts skitter through puddles and dust, greying from years of toil without a wash. She holds her lantern out in front with her longest arm. It swings gently, casting shadows up the walls of houses. Fearful eyes peek from around curtains, watching her steady journey.

She reaches the next lamp. Then, a sound. Not the clatter of a cartwheel, or the squeak of a rat, but a human sound. A grunt, a groan, a wail. Her many eyes, like empty honey comb, whip round. A boy. So plump and scared. He’d only come outside to fetch in logs for his winter fire. Foolish boy. Plump boy.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he fumbles for words from his vacuous mind, “For disturbing you.”

The Lamplighter cocks her head. She does not understand human words. She hates the plump little boy and the way he stares. She’ll take his eyes so he cannot stare anymore.

Her arm reaches out to grab the boy, a taloned finger poking into the soft socket. He tries to scream, but another hand stops his tongue. She pulls him close and smells him. Beef, onions, burning firewood. Plump boy is better off a crumpled heap in the street, she decided.

But the clock ticks further still. She had been distracted enough. There were other lamps to light. She lifts the lantern and on she creeps through the black streets coated in soot and ash.

She does her duty, just like everyone else in this town, and she does it well. But she hates interruptions. And she hates noise more so. So stay inside once the sun has set, for the Lamplighter cannot be far away. If you see a dull light, late one evening, wandering through the fog, that’s her. And once you have seen the light, it could already be too late.