I am alone on the island,
This place where I came to live... I do not recall how long ago, exactly.
I do not even recall the moving,
Or my decision to settle on this small rock piercing the agitated waters of The English Channel, always buried under a thick layer of fog sticking to its entire surface, churning around in circles, making my clothes feel permanently damp, just like my hair,
Making me drink the vaporised water it carries with every single breath.

I am alone, sometimes, but I do not mind.
At first I was afraid of this eldritch, uninhabited isle with only one house clinging to the foot of the cliff where its white lighthouse is perched, the cone of its light barely strong enough to pierce the perpual mists,
Scared of the empty mansion with its dozens of abandoned rooms,
When I perceived the times long passed trapped within its cool, stone walls covered with patches of mildew,
The past thrumming, murmuring, beating like its heart,
Making the ancient building feel alive,
As strangely alive as I still am, somehow,
Existing in this place drifting through the sea... of time...
Without ever leaving,
Thriving upon its infinite fog.

I am alone on the island, but not really,
For I can feel him.
He never appears to my eyes, no more than a sudden shift in the fog when the cloud is the thickest,
No more than the flicker in candle light inside, when he drifts by,
On his way to join me for tea in our favourite spot of the garden,
Where the steaming pot and sweet blueberry scones and tiny cucumber sandwiches appear every afternoon at the same hour, along with a fresh pile of unread books.

And as we eat these only treats we need to sustain us in our strange existence,
He speaks to me,
And even though I can't hear his voice, I can imagine it in the screeching of the seagulls circling in the invisible sky high above the comfortable blanket of cool, humid fog,
And in the crashing of the sea against the cliffs on the nearby beach.

We talk about the books we read, and the weather, and the long walk we would take after the tea,
And about our love,
About how he would read to me in bed at night like he always does,
In those moments before I close my eyes,
When I believe that I am in my private heaven.