excerpt from
Starfishes
from
The Best American Short Plays 2010–2011
setting
A Nova Scotia lighthouse in the late 1980s. The sitting room.
ELI [Late twenties.] They’re firing lightkeepers all up the coast. It’s easier to make these places automatic. Or just get rid of them. It’s ridiculous. It, it guides lost vessels back to shore. [Beat.] Anyway, I should go upstairs. [. . .] When I was younger, I used to listen to other people’s conversations on the two-way radio. The lighthouse was so far away from anybody that I . . . And one day, I heard this girl over the radio. She must’ve been around my age. Pretty voice. Her name was Margaret, I think. And every Sunday, at the same time, just when I’d be getting home from church, she’d send out the same frequency. [. . .] I started talking to her over the radio upstairs. There was something about her voice. And I think I . . . [. . .] It felt so . . . good. To have someone to talk to. Especially after my father died. Her father was a sailor. She used to tell me about all the exotic things he brought back with him from his voyages. Ships in a bottle from Martinique, uh . . . dried-out sea horses from coral reefs. But the thing she talked about most was this starfish. She said it was perfect. She said that God didn’t make man in his image. He made starfish instead. [. . .] The last time I spoke to her, she was going away for the summer. Her father decided to let her travel with him. And . . . I heard some sailors on the radio talking about it later . . . Their ship was lost at sea. It must have been a foggy night. Somebody probably forgot to light the lamp in the lighthouse. Excuse me.