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Billy Logan woke up. In a cold sweat. He knew that something was wrong right away, because he looked out his window and he couldn’t see the lighthouse anymore, and it wasn’t just because of the fact that it was night, since a lighthouse is usually lit up at night to keep boats away from the shore.

Like had happened on that day so many years ago.

But no, he could see a few bright spots through his window, so he just assumed that something else was wrong. Out of the bed he leapt and ran for the door, making sure to first put on his slippers and robe.

He crashed into the door. Then he fell onto the floor, and passed out.

* * *

He was surrounded by a bright white light. Back in bed. A bed with metal rails on the side. Mother leaning over him. Other people leaning over him. With clipboards. And white coats. More white. Everything white. He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Where am I?” Billy Logan asked.

A sigh. “You’re in the hospital, Billy,” his mother told him.

“Why am I in the hospital, mommy?”

“Well, we found you on the floor of your bedroom.” Billy Logan realized that he couldn’t see her face.

“Where’s daddy?”

“Daddy doesn’t live with us anymore, remember?”

“Daddy doesn’t love me anymore?”

“I didn’t say that at all.”

“Then why isn’t he here? And why can’t I see you?”

“Uh, perhaps I could butt in here.” The doctor. Billy Logan didn’t like doctors. They were evil men who kept you in bed and made you take disgusting medicine. And gave you shots. They were like clowns, Billy Logan thought. Evil clowns.

“Mrs. Logan–”

“That’s Ms. Logan, asshole.”

“Okay, okay, Ms. Logan, your son has myopia.”

A gasp. “Myopia? Nooooo! Not myopia! Anything but that!” The doctor’s attempt to interrupt. “Myopia? You might as well have given my child a death sentence!” She began to cry.

“Well, actually, Mrs. Logan–”

“That’s Ms. Logan, you big dumb excuse for a biologist!”

“I’m not a biologist, I’m a doctor. There’s a difference.”

“Well, what’s the difference, then?”

“Biologists are–oh, why am I bothering with this?” The doctor (whose name was Sam (I’m sorry I forgot to mention this earlier, sorry–Author)) put down his clipboard and glasses. “As I was saying, Mrs.–Ms. Logan, Billy also has cancer.”

“Cancer. Huh.”

“Doesn’t this bother you in any way, Ms. Logan?”

“Well, uh, it’s not as bad as being nearsighted for the rest of his life.”

“I’m going to die?” Billy Logan asked, wide-eyed. He was suddenly very afraid, more afraid than when he couldn’t see the lighthouse, which seemed like so many hours ago now.

“I’m sure this is awfully hard on you, Ms. Logan. I mean, an hour ago, your boy was fine, and now he’s going to be near blind for the rest of his life, which is only going to be a few weeks. Two months at best.”

Billy Logan lay back and thought about how on the television, on E.R. they never talk about death like this in front of the patient. And then he reminisced about Jessica, dear sweet Jessica, whom he had known all his life and was starting to develop serious feelings for.

“But Doctor Sam, he’s only seven years old! Why is he having romantic flashbacks about girls when he’s only seven years old? And why is he blind?”

Billy Logan reflected on her flaxen hair and fair skin, her beautiful laugh, her clear blue eyes.

“I’m not sure, Mrs. Logan. I’m really not sure.”

Her carefree attitude for life. The way she would run around her backyard for hours, for no reason, just because she believed it was fun. The way she believed nothing bad could ever happen to her.

“It’s too early in the morning for this to happen. It’s still the crepuscule.”

The way both the teachers and the students always liked her.

“What the hell is the crepuscule?”

“It’s like the gloaming, except it’s around dawn, not dusk.”

“Ahh, I see,” said Doctor Sam. “That almost makes sense.”

The way Jessica and her father had crashed into the rocks that one day, so many months ago, and the way that, when you are young, the months seem like years and the hours seem like months.

And then Billy Logan, blind and doomed, fell back to sleep.

He had loved her.