My name is Ben and I am a lighthouse keeper. I do not pretend to have seen the mariner’s shadow with my own waking eyes. What I can tell you about the ship is only the bland information found in cargo listings, stringent maritime records and the usual archives of local newspapers and gazettes of that time. But stories have been passed down by my family in strict confidence, warning that it is better to let sleeping dogs lie than to awaken the storm of dread which could easily arise from their terrible bites. Yet it seems unnatural that our family, cursed with the burden of knowledge, should celebrate and be happy on festival days — with only the best of the Two Oceans wine mind you –when phantom sailors draw their false, threatening breaths upon the waves.

With the gift of Cape Town wine, our line was agreed to take charge of the Cape’s keeping during one of its stormiest seasons. Forever I have chosen to ignore the summons but now I wake and sit up and look out from my room atop the lighthouse. It is not an unnatural pull like those in the stories, created by a witch’s curse or an ill wager — it is simply a part of who I am. I carry inside of me the mark of my people. The grey hues of morning create a ghostly palette above the tumultuous waters that smash against the rocks below my door. The exact location of where the two oceans collide, the icy western currents of the Agulhas meeting in imagined hisses and foams the warmth of the Benguela from the east, is unknown. People think it sits between the Cape of Storms and my home here at Cape Point. But beneath it, a warm life burns in an icy limbo, its heartbeat begun by a chemical clash and a human tragedy so long ago that only the waters remember it. He is the lonely Dutchman.

My father, also named Ben, decided to decline the gift of Cape Town wine — he was not disgraced but merely chose to bestow the honour upon another: myself. With the buzz of youthful curiosity I accepted eagerly the weight of expectation and responsibility, not recognising the albatross I strung so hastily across my shoulders. Ironically, my desire to see truth in fantasy has led me to become lost in a dizzy cycle of conscious sleep. No longer am I sure of myself when I cross the seas in my rowboat. But it does not matter as, whether I am awake or whether I sleep, the Dutchman resides in my perceived world. My day is spent with him so that I may save those who journey too close to his brooding rocks during those darker nights.

But I never remember my times with him and his crew. I make sure that my little boat is stacked with the expected sacrifice of wine bottles and roasted chips and dip. I have taken to leaving a small sketchpad in the bow to list my memories. But he casts a spell upon my mind and a blackness takes me. I wake up in the mornings but he is not in the restless seas around me. His kelp throne bobs alone and my drawings are indecipherable wild scrawls and unhinged lines. The wine bottles clink gently as I rock myself back to shore and up the steps hewn into the cliffs below my lonely house. My heart yearns to drink upon the shores and watch the sunset with my friends. But I am married to my purpose and my purpose is the gift of Cape Town wine.