Donny the Lamplighter gave a big yawn as he sat up in his bed. As usual his day began at four in the morning. Donny lit the streets for all those who woke before the sun.

He dressed quickly. Donny wore a thin button down shirt, thick black trousers, and tall boots. Above his shirt he wore a cotton vest with big brown buttons. The vest was light grey with no sleeves. On his head was a flat cap made of tweed.

A quarter after four, he left his front door with his tall stick and lit the first lamp outside his house.

The small light from the lantern lit the way, as the leaves crunched under his feet. Berle counted the one hundred trees and arrived at the “meet up place” Daucle told him. But Tod wasn’t there.

The crickets made loud noises, the trees whistled as they swayed in the wind. 

Berle stood there dressed fully in black with a small opening for his eyes. In one hand he held his lantern, in the other was a small leather pouch.

“Where is Tod?” Berle thought. “Did they catch him, or is he just running late?”

His knees knocked against each other feeling cold from the morning breeze. 

Berle moved closer to the one hundredth tree, stretching his lantern ahead of him. On the floor he saw a note.

“I feel like I'm being followed,” wrote Tod. “Come meet me fifty feet in the forest from the Grand Mersey Dock.

It was there that he found Tod.

Tod wasn’t dressed in black. He wore a jean jacket with short boxy cuts, two buttoned pockets on top, with zippered pockets below. He wore dark gray trousers.

“My days are short, I know that,” said Tod, with a cold quiet tone, “The worst is upon me. I’m worrying for you, let’s keep this short. You don’t deserve to be hurt.”

Tod fell silent and blushed, he stared down at the leaves that twirled in between them, a million thoughts rushed through his head.

“The whole country is out to get me, they want to kill me for the crime I committed to the royal family. I just can’t understand. I just can’t. Where did I go wrong? I read your letter over and over, I just don’t get it.”

“I remember the first day your father rushed into my office with the blueprints, I can see it like it was yesterday. I was fascinated. I right away imagined the big buildings and bridges I can build with his brilliance. I spent months studying it. That’s how I built this bridge in the water behind us.”

Tod broke down into crying, Berle stood there in silence. 

From far in the distance they began to hear loud footprints. Tod screamed “just tell me, we don’t have much longer.”

Berle pulled his hand out his cloak and took out the small leather pouch. He undid the button, and removed a few small papers.

“Those are the coupons!” said Tod. “Why do you still have them?”

“Let me explain.” Berle put his hand on Tod’s shoulder.

“My Elter Zeide didn’t just build buildings, he saw the world like no one else did, he understood every shape, he knew the deeper meaning behind everything.”

“Before he passed he put his heart and soul on paper. Not for people to create big stuff, not to build big bridges. He made the blueprints to allow others to see the world like he did.”

Berle wiped the tears that flowed from his eyes.

“When you saw the blueprints, you saw it externally, you saw a method to build, you saw a way to bring new breakthroughs in the world, you never strived to become Elter Zeide. You passed over the hard work, you passed over shaping yourself to be like him. You don’t care about Elter Zeide”

“That’s why you failed, you thought you understood, but you never began to see what he was trying to say.”

Most of the lightposts around the harbor were already lit. Through the trees, they saw lanterns rushing towards them. Tod reached into his briefcase and took out a blue envelope. “I’m listening to every word,” said Tod. “I just want to give this to you, before it’s too late.”

Berle opened the envelope and gasped, inside were all of Elter Zeide’s blueprints.

“I’m overjoyed to have this, but I don’t need this, I’ll explain.”

“To me, Elter Zeide was the man I wished to become. I toiled over the blueprints every night for years. Not in order to build big things, but to figure out why he made the shapes he did, to understand the way he thought.”

“I made many mistakes in my life, no one I know trusts me anymore. I even exchanged the blueprints for renderings, but that was only because I thought I would better understand the Elter Zeide. I was Wrong. But I never forgot the blueprints.”

Berle flipped over the coupons. “Each of these coupons is worth more to me than the millions of blueprints you build the bridge with. This is where I met my Elter Zeide. These lines carry his depth, I can see it.”

“Everything you built was upside down, you completely misunderstood him. When I flipped those brackets “backwards” was actually the way they were supposed to be built. That was Elter Zeide carving my mind before I could understand what I was even doing.”

Tod’s face flushed from color, he fell to the ground on his knees and screamed on the top of his lungs. “You are right, you are so right! I have warped your heritage.” 

“A life like this is not worth living.”

Tod jumped up and spun around to the tall clif that overlooked River Mersey. Before Berle could do anything he leaped head first into the water. 

Berle jumped up, Tod was nowhere to be seen.

Donny the lamplighter was in his boat going along the harbor lighting the lightposts.

Suddenly a full sized man fell straight into his boat, he screamed “You know what! I’ll become Elter Zeide!”

The End.