1. the entire town was a series of narrow adobe houses built down a narrow ocean cliff. at sunrise the lamplighters climbed up the crags in their bare feet, their snuffing poles slung and tapping in the dark.
2. the townspeople were all skilled climbers and their feet were leather-patched brown. they had lived on the cliff commune their whole lives. the rectangle roofs made for slender streets and at night there were lamps going up and lamps going down.
3. the cliff was divided into twelve neighborhood ledges. the merchants, bakers, brewers, and lawyers lived together on the top number of ledges. below them lived the gardeners, teachers, craftsmen, and poets. the farmers and their crops claimed the lower ledges while the last ledge and its caves was reserved for the cultivating and harvesting of crystals.
4. the lamplighters lived inside the walls of an enormous sea cave beneath the city. the sea cave was home to over two hundred lamplighters. huddled together they looked like pigeons in message boxes. their eyes were wide and yellow and they spoke to each other in coos and caws.
when they moved it was always frantic and jerky. the townspeople could not make out their pigeons words as the lamplighters crept up their windows whispering to each other in the dark.
5. the townspeople only knew the lamplighters as hooded shadows slipping around rocks and branches. the townspeople had to be inside their homes while the lamplighters worked. only the bakers caught glimpses at sunrise, tying loaves of rye to their ankles as they passed. this was the arrangement between the lamplighters and the townspeople. that no one bother the lamplighters.
6. one evening a lamplighter fell from the sixth ledge. all night the lamplighters lay in their nooks listening to the lamplighter crying in the dark. finally in the morning he died. when they found his body at sunrise his neck was crooked and his beard was matted in salt and blood.
7. that morning the lamplighters moved up the cliff in formation putting out the lights with their poles. when the townspeople woke up they found small brown boxes in their doorways. the boxes were stuffed in gulfweed and pillowing little pieces of the lamplighter's body.
8. that evening the sun set and the city remained dark. word came that the lamplighters were eating the children. in the morning ten children were found massed in the city square with missing hands. the children had crystals growing up from their sagging mouths and drooping eyes.
9. after a week the town was empty of children.
10. it was decided on diplomacy, on form. the townspeople drew lots and that afternoon the bakers moved down the cliff with satchels of their best bread.
11. the next morning ten bakers were found massed in the city square with missing hands; crystals tied to their ankles with strings. two bakers were sent up with a message.
12. that evening the townspeople gathered themselves into canoes at the foot of the mountain. above them the lamplighters were setting the city on fire. when the townspeople sailed away the city was as one giant lamp floating on deep black water. and the townspeople covered their heads with cloaks as the lamplighters hooted and screamed at them through the dark and the rain.