The most impressive thing about the meeting hall was that they built it in twelve days. It wasn't some ramshackle wooden mess, either; it was a sturdy thing of rock. Rock is power, they said, and they carted stone from the quarry and hauled it up with ropes and pulleys.

            It was a circle. It was many circles. It was really just a big stone circle in the ground, rising up about fifteen feet, with a stone roof. The base floor was around the size of a church, only not as tall. There were entrances on two opposite sides and a raised dais in the middle. The idea was to instill a leaderless environment. By keeping the platform in the middle, equidistant from the doors, approachable from all sides, no one could ensconce and bring attention to himself for too long. There were between fifty and sixty active members of the group. The meeting hall had other floors atop the first, larger one, such that it tapered to a cylinder thinner than the base and rose up for hundreds of feet, but there was no obvious way to access these higher floors from the bottom.

            It was a marshy swamp where they built their hall. Necessarily, they drained the ground first and built up the earth beside the building. All around them was tall, wet grass. The hall was by the shore, by a tall cliff overlooking a dark and nasty sea. The sea, in fact, was famous for throwing ships against the cliff. The cliff was jagged and broken, but it had a natural beauty to it that, because of the lay of the land, could only be seen by sea. The proper distance for the viewing of this spectacle was from around one hundred feet away. Unfortunately, getting that close to the cliff almost always led to a climactic dashing against those same rocks.

            On the thirteenth day they assembled. One by one, they filed into the hall. They were not boisterous, but not exactly orderly either.  Their ages were varied, their clothes messy on the average. One wore a lopsided fisher's hat and torn jeans; another wore a suit as might have been worn by an English poet of the sixties. They approached the dais from all sides, talking quietly to those nearby, or not talking at all. After a few minutes they had all assembled; punctuality was one virtue they shared.

            They ranged around the center stone and examined each other across its smooth surface. The noise in the room quickly died down and stopped. A wave of restless movement shuffled through them, but then this too stopped. One took a tentative step up, and then lifted himself onto the dais and stood in the middle. Another, not to be outdone, but not wishing for confrontation, nonchalantly sat on the edge. The ice was broken now, and the men and women visibly relaxed and shuffled about. The man in the center cleared his throat. He was stocky and balding. He wore a yellow raincoat and matching yellow hat. Underneath they could make out faded green corduroys. He turned halfway and looked at those assembled, and then spoke in a surprisingly confident voice.

            "I call this first meeting of the lighthouse keepers into order."

            The effect was tremendous. What had been a rather staid and droopy crowd suddenly realized what they had accomplished. As one, they yelled and cheered for themselves. This startling display of emotion did not evoke any shame. On the contrary, It only encouraged involvement from the others. Another man stood up.

            “We came from every corner of this soggy country!” he said. He wore a plaid sweater and black boots.

            “We came from every corner, but did we fly? Did we drive? No!” The crowd was rapt with attention. These changes from silence to enthusiasm were miraculous.

            “We did not fly!” punctuating his words, “We. Did. Not. Fly!” he yelled. “We sailed!” The crowd erupted again. The meeting of the lighthouse keepers was going along swimmingly, so to speak, and a few of the more important members exchanged a significant glance. A younger one stepped forward then, in a nicer suit and dark hat. The crowd suddenly hushed.

            “We assembled on such short notice, built our hall on such short notice, left everything on such short notice, and only a few of us even know why.” His voice was soft; his words were clipped and precise. He spoke neither slow nor fast.

            “What we represent,” he continued, “is more than a mere assembly. It is more than an organization, or even a union. We,” and here he paused, looked around wildly. “We,” again a pregnant pause, “are a brotherhood.”

            The room was silent. The assembled mass had not realized exactly why they were there. There were no other lighthouse keepers in the country. Each one of them had received a visit, in person, from one of the movers in the group. None had declined the invitation. After all, there just weren’t many of them left. One had to stay loyal to one’s profession.

            The members of the brotherhood of lighthouse keepers looked at each other and looked at the well-dressed man on the dais. He beckoned to them.

            “Well,” he said, “what are you waiting for? Come on! Get up here!”

            Confused, a few started forward, and then one by one did the lighthouse keepers ascend the dais, until they were all standing uncomfortably on the stone. With no space to move they stared uncomfortably around them and realized that there was one man left off the dais, an obvious outsider from the start. He wore a brown trench coat and boots, but something about his demeanor belied any intimate association with lighthouses. He reached into his coat, then, and withdrew a strange remote-control type of device. He pressed a few buttons, gave a tip of an imaginary hat, and quickly turned his back and left.

            The room was only silent for a few seconds when the dais made a strange noise and started to rise off of the ground. Some of the men shifted uncomfortably. It slowly gained speed as it ascended through an opening in the ceiling, and then through a long vertical tunnel of stone. Finally, it came out into a smaller room at what was obviously the top of the tower. The men spread apart by reflex and looked out of expansive windows that were not visible from the outside. The lighthouse towered over the land.

            Suddenly they heard a noise far below them. They felt it too – a rumbling in their bones. The older ones looked around in fear, while the younger men hid their fear by smiling and joking. Of course this had no effect on the lighthouse. As expected, it slid effortlessly into the sky and rocketed through the atmosphere. It burst into space with aplomb, the product of their labor, and its light cut through the silent dark of the abyss.