Dancer in the Dark (short story)

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.

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.

Doey's joyful attitude and his androgynous beauty stir feelings in Michael that he does not fully understand, and he is torn between remaining in the gloom of his familiar world or taking his chances in the light.