The Lighthouse Keeper

This is a short story/sketch that was inspired by Kiersten's Blog post "Harbor without an anchor." I hope you enjoy, and keep in mind this is just a first draft. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

The old man hobbled out of the dark lighthouse, his beard tangled and grey. On his shoulder sat a tarnished bird, which must have glinted when new, but now was as used up as his master. The man scanned the sky for any unusual lights, set against the unchanging backdrop of the stars. The ships were passing by less and less frequently now, and he hadn't seen one in weeks. Most of the time, they were merely bright dots far away in the vastness of space. Turning, he stopped abruptly and stood still.

The pilot scanned the darkness of space looking for the astroids his instruments told him were near. He sighed in relief as they appeared in the headlights, but something was strange. He started in shock as he realized what he was looking at. A tower seemed to grow from the foremost asteroid and before it was an old man, standing as if he had been hewn from the same rock the tower had been made from. As the pilot looked closer, the large, lumpy astroid behind the old man reconfigured itself into the ruins of buildings and towers. A great city once stood here, before it was abandoned to the mercy of space. And space had not been kind. As the space zeppelin hovered closer, the pilot saw where meteors and space debris had knocked down towers and caused craters.

The pilot wondered how this had happened. Why the old man had stayed or survived when the city was abandoned. Why the lighthouse (it was a lighthouse, the pilot noted as he went past) still had a tenant. Was there a mass exodus of everyone but the old man? Had there been a disease or plague that killed off everyone but the lighthouse keeper? Had he been left to tend the lighthouse when his people left?

The old man waved, a wave so slow the pilot was almost unsure that he had moved at all as the shiny space zeppelin moved on, leaving behind the lonely lighthouse keeper, guardian of a dead city.