It was time to retire. His bones were getting old and were yearning for a rest. James had worked his way up through the levels of Montville Maine Public Works Dept during his 50 year career. He could still recall vividly his first day of work. He joined up just out of high school. A job was a job, he thought and he figured he could always trade up for factory work or go to the tech school and learn diesel mechanics. His first day he was boss over an old dirty shovel, nothing more. He was sent out into the hot August sun to assist the pot hole repair team. His job was cleaning up the bits of asphalt left over from the paving machines so they wouldn't get stuck in people's tires and go flying up in the air.

He felt in those early days he was helping to save lives. A chunk of grit could hit a windshield or flatten a tire. With each ball of tar, sand and gravel removed he imagined one more safe driver, another trip gone well. Maybe he was being naive but he stuck to the belief and it carried him through all the years of his service to the small town.

During the last 12 he was superintendent over the whole shooting match. It was good honest work, some may look down on street maintenance or find the job an easy butt of jokes. But he was proud of what he had accomplished. He had only one regret.

He was sitting in a rickety chair at the scarred old desk in the corner of the truck barn. He preferred this to his fancy office over in the town hall. He felt it was his duty to be with the men, make sure they were listened to. There was another reason. And it was something he would never admit to anyone. From the corner he had a view of the old lamppost out behind the VFW. It was an ordinary aluminum post, just like all the others in town, sitting next to the old bridge road.

The road that passed by had been replaced years ago, taking the traffic out to the west side of the VFW hall and to the new bridge down a ways. The old road was near completely grown over now. If you looked carefully you could find bits of old asphalt between the tree roots. The old road would soon be forgotten to everyone but a few old-timers.

Dusk was coming, it was getting on towards winter and the light faded earlier each day. He felt it was his duty to wait until the old lamp came on, in one small way he felt he was protected the good people of the town. His thoughts drifted back to the first time they tried to remove the lamp. It was a simple process, using the small crane they ran a chain around the pole and took up the slack by lifting the hook. You had to be sure to get the chain more than half way up the pole, otherwise it would flip when you pulled the bolts and that never ended well. He was assigned to disconnect the base. He popped the nuts off the embedded bolts and signaled the crane operator to lift just a bit. The pole cleared the bolts and held steady. He disconnected the power and was done. He would like to say he had some sense of foreboding but no matter how hard he tried to recall he came up with nothing.

The next day when the crew returned to the worksite, the pole was back in place. Except it wasn't. The pole they had removed was still on the truck. They figured maybe they had missed it somehow and miscounted the total. Poles don't just re-grow. The crew set to work to remove the pole. James approached the base to run through his part of the job. It was at this moment he felt the first misgivings. The day before while pulling the first nut his wrench slipped and gouged the pole. He could see the same gouge in the pole even though he hadn't yet put wrench to nut. He dismissed his feelings as if they were part of some imagined plot of a silly movie and got to work. He wouldn't know until some years later the horrid consequences of this simple act.

The next day the pole was back.

They all figured one of the crew was pulling a prank on them. The crew brought the pole down again. James ignored the pile of identical poles building up. The implication was just too much to fathom. That evening, after everyone had gone, James secretly set up a camera on the same desk he was now sitting at. He was going to catch whoever was doing this. The joke had gone too far.

James woke up early, heading it to the barn before anyone else. As expected, the pole was back in place. He silently cheered, he caught the bastard. Rushing into the barn, he grabbed the camera. Quickly rewinding the recording, he could see in the early light the pool was there. He rewound back to a point of no pole. He could see the time stamp on the recording, it was a bit before 2 am. He was getting excited, this is the evidence! The recording rolled forward. Suddenly the pole appeared in the frame. He rolled it back and forward again. It wasn't there and then it was. He checked the time, over an hour was missing from the recording. Damn! Who ever was playing this prank knew about the camera. At least he knew it was one of his guys, no one else could get into the barn.

He waited until the entire crew arrived for work. It was time to end this game. He brought them together and confronted the group with the facts. Nobody fessed up. Alright he said, come to me in private. But this game ends now.

James decided to leave the pole up for now. They all got busy with other work. Several weeks went by until they had another lull. No one came forth as the culprit. James told the crew to go out and pull the pole down one last time.

The next day the pole was back.

James has never been a man prone to anger, but this was testing his limits. He decided he would make it really hard on whoever was pulling this off. He instructed his crew to take done the damn pole and pile cement highway barriers on the mounting plate, lots of them. They worked through the afternoon. When they were done, there was 150 tons of cement and steel piled up where the pole had been.

The next day they stared in amazement. The pile of highway barriers lay untouched. No pole. Nothing. Honestly, they all expected some kind of magic to move the pile and put the pole up again. James was satisfied. The problem was solved until the day they needed the barriers, but he was going to leave that problem until it needed to be solved.

Every morning each member of the crew checked on the pile. Each day there was no change.

It wasn't until a week later that James learned of the true nature of what they had done. James' wife Brenda worked at the town's only old folks home, sorry, retirement home. He noticed she was coming home more stressed each night than the night before. He would ask and she just replied with 'trouble at work'. After a week of this he sat her down and asked what what going on. She burst out in tears, she told him they were losing people. It was bad when someone died, they all felt it dearly. But this last week had been especially bad. Every single day they lost someone. James had a sinking feeling. He went online to look at the local obituaries. They lived in a small town, people did not die often. Every day that had taken down the pole, someone had died.

It was near 11pm when he finished his research. He ran out and jumped into his truck, racing down to the barn. Working like a maniac, he pulled the traffic barriers aside, scattering them all over the roadway. It was near 2 am when he pulled the last barrier and was moving it off to the side. His back was to the mounting plate. Suddenly the roadway was bathed in light. He turned to see the pole back in its normal place, light shining brightly.

In the morning James spoke with the crew. Turns out a few of them had been having strange dreams and were relieved to see the pole back in its rightful place. He instructed them to clean up all the barriers. He had them place those yellow steel crash poles all around the light pole and weld the bolts solid. He didn't want it going anywhere. The retirement home settled down to normal operation.

Over the years James noticed from time to time that the light would not come on at dusk. He learned to check the papers the next day, someone in town had passed. April 24th two years ago, James remembers well that night the light did not come on. He had a bad feeling that time. Enough that he did not want to go home, but forced himself anyway. The image was still too vivid, finding Brenda on the kitchen floor. His light went out that night.

Coming back to the present, he watched out the window as night fell. The light did not go on tonight.

He finished his worked and stepped outside. He felt the light calling to him.