Dancer in the Dark

"Dancer in the Dark" is a 2004 science fiction story by American writer David Gerrold. It was the cover story in the April 2004 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and was also selected for the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden (2005). Plot summary The story appears to take place in an alternate version of North America in the present or near-future. Following the collapse of social order in cities, the newly orphaned teenager Michael is put aboard a refugee train and sent to work on a small-town farm. Conditions are difficult because the countryside is covered with "darklines", a type of wire that absorbs light, making the environment dull and gloomy and seemingly draining all the townsfolk of vitality and joy. The darklines have been erected in an attempt to prevent the encroachment of a strange "brightness" which the townsfolk claim will cause anyone who enters it to go blind and mad and eventually die. Wearing protective gear and dark goggles, the townspeople show Michael the brightness; he risks taking off his goggles for a brief peek and is surprised to see what looks like a naked boy of about his own age, dancing in the light. He guesses that the boy must be his predecessor Doey, who ran off into the brightness and was believed dead. Michael learns that Doey was not the only one, and begins to suspect that the brightness may not be as deadly as the locals believe. His suspicions are strengthened when Doey, still naked and glowing with brilliant colors, briefly dances into the darkness to taunt and invite Michael when no one else is watching.