Рэй Брэдбери (Ray Bradbury)Every night MacDunn and Johnny waited for the fog. When it came, they lit the fog light in the lighthouse. Red, then white, then red again. They sent the light to the ships out in the sea but when the fog was too thick they switched on their Fog Horn!
One cold November evening they were having a quiet talk about their job, about the mysteries of the sea. The great eye of the light was shining into the sea. The Fog Horn was blowing once every fifteen seconds.
‘One night,’ said MacDunn, ‘years ago, I was here alone. Suddenly the fish came up. Something made them swim up. When I saw their funny eyes, I turned cold. They were like a big peacock’s tail in the moonlight.
Then, without a sound, they disappeared. Strange. Think how the lighthouse must look to them. It stands high above the water, the light comes out from it, and the tower speaks in a monster voice…’
Johnny was frightened. He was watching the grey sea going away into nothing and nowhere.
‘Oh, the sea’s full of life,’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s an old world,’ MacDunn smoked his cigar and looked worried. ‘Now, I’ve got something to tell you. The Fog Horn sounds like an animal, doesn’t it? A big lonely animal crying in the night. Calling out to the Deep, ‘I’m here, I’m here.’ Well, you have been here for three months, Johnny, so I’m going to tell you. Something comes to visit the lighthouse.’
‘Do you mean the fish?’
‘No, something else. First it happened three years ago. It usually happens about this time of the year. Let’s wait and watch.’ While they were waiting, MacDunn told some theories about the Fog Horn to Johnny. ‘One day a man walked along the cold shore. Then he stopped and said, «We need a voice to call across the water to the ships. I’ll make one like a voice of the fog. I’ll make a sound that’s so lonely that everybody listens to it. Everyone who hears it will start crying, and their hearts will become warmer.» I made up that story to explain why it keeps coming back to the lighthouse. The Fog Horn calls it, I think, and it comes…’
It was a foggy night and the light was coming and going, and the Fog Horn was calling through the air. In the high tower they watched the sea moving to the dark shore. And then, suddenly from the cold sea came a large dark head, and then a neck. And then more neck and more! The head was high above the water on a beautiful dark neck. Finally came the body, like a little island of black coral.