"Welcome to my new home", I said to the tall chap in the doorway. "Come in, but mind the rubbish and the diesel generator."
Roth ducked as he went through the outer door in the thick stone wall. "It's round like a pizza," he said. "And tall, um, totally unlike a pizza."
"Lighthouses tend to be a little like that. They also have a real load of stairs. Are you feeling fit, the living room is halfway up?"
We trotted up the huge metal stairs to the first room.
"I like it. Very post-industrial chic. Great view out of the windows, all that sand, right to the horizon."
"It belonged to my great-grandfather, he left it to his first descendent called Max, and here I am."
"Oh, so that's why you changed your name legally from iDifficult to Max Tunguska? Or was that an alternative timeline or universe?"
"It's possible to change your name legally? Who knew? You mean I didn't need n-dimensional physics, string theory and a tame black hole? Ohhhh!"
I took my mind back to the game at hand. “Would you like a relaxing drink?”
“Hell yeah, it’s been a long trip.”
I poured two Tequila Slammers and handed one up to him. “Take a seat.”
We had a lovely conversation about badgers and cephalopods and genetics.
"I heard that Dantoo's cephalopod gene therapy didn't go as she expected."
"She was hoping for suckers which would help with window cleaning, or colour changing for a really good game of hide-and-seek."
"I take it that's not what she got?"
"Black squid-ink pee. She believes that's nearly useless. I agree." He paused and sniffed,“By the way, can you smell vanilla?”
“Yeah, that’s the ghost of the first lighthouse keeper. He used to smoke, but has taken up vaping recently. “
“Surely he isn’t bothered smoking will kill him?”
“No, he didn’t want me to get ill from passive smoking. “
“That’s really considerate.”
“Isn’t it just? Better than when he tried trendy ginseng cigarettes - they smelled of burning garden rubbish.”
"I'd love to see the top of this place."
"The light? Yeah. It's awesome. You've guessed stairs would be involved, right?"
We reached the top, breathing heavily, and stood around the light inside the huge cylindrical lenses.
"What's it like when it's on?"
"Brighter. And a bit glittery. Wanna see? I’d put these glasses on though.” I put on a set of welding glasses and handed another pair to Indigo. As soon as we both had them on I pulled the huge Frankenstein switch on the wall. The light erupted and through the dark blue glass we could see the wall of lenses rotate.
I shut the light back down and we stepped through a gap in the slowing wall of lenses into the outer gallery and went out through a glass door onto the balcony.
“It’s very Good evening, Antonio Bay up here. Do you have to keep the light running?”
“Yes, part of the conditions of ownership. And a fog horn if it’s foggy, not that it happens often. My great-grandfather was immensely proud of the fact we’d had no shipping disasters, boats running aground or anything like it near here.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with the lighthouse being in the middle of Arizona?”
“I did wonder why the tide hadn’t come in recently.”