Interviewer: Mr Olsen, the Skerry Point light is now automatic, but you are still here. Why?
Olsen: Machines can turn on a light. They can't tell when it's wrong. So the company calls me a "caretaker", and I call myself the keeper.
Interviewer: What is a normal day like?
Olsen: Quiet. I check the lamp, clean the windows, listen to the weather radio. Then I wait.
Interviewer: Do you ever feel lonely?
Olsen: Of course. But it's a special kind of loneliness. It has a job. The light is not for me. It's for ships I'll never meet.
Interviewer: Has a ship ever thanked you?
Olsen: Once, in a storm, a cargo ship came very close. At night I heard its horn, three long sounds. Nobody wrote, nobody called. But I understood.
Interviewer: And do you think lighthouses will disappear?
Olsen: Maybe. But a light does something that a map can't. It says: "Someone is here." In a dark sea, that's a lot.
Interviewer: Last question. What would you tell a young person?
Olsen: Find something that needs to be done even when nobody is looking.
Fiction note: All people, places and events in this dialogue are fictional.