In this chap­ter, the nar­ra­tor awak­ens from a vivid dream about a song linked to a comet, fea­tur­ing peo­ple from their life like Lark, Maudie, and oth­ers, along with Mr. Tashi, a char­ac­ter rep­re­sent­ing calm­ness amid chaos. As the nar­ra­tor hears church bells, they real­ize they are near a town named Light­ner. Upon arrival, they find a desert­ed munic­i­pal water­front, rem­nants of a once-bustling town. After mak­ing a some­what clum­sy dock­ing attempt, they head into town to gar­ner sup­plies.

While explor­ing, they over­hear two chil­dren dis­cussing the recent deaths of three peo­ple in their town, rais­ing intense feel­ings sur­round­ing the top­ic of sui­cide ver­sus seek­ing a bet­ter exis­tence. The girl cor­rects her broth­er, claim­ing it is not sui­cide if one mere­ly steps through to anoth­er realm, sug­gest­ing the des­per­ate pur­suit of hope in the shad­ow of despair. This con­ver­sa­tion reflects the town’s atmos­phere of grief and con­fu­sion.

The nar­ra­tor, seek­ing essen­tials, vis­its a gro­cery store where an empa­thet­ic cashier express­es sor­row about the tragedies that have unfold­ed. She chal­lenges the idea of sui­cide, shar­ing her per­spec­tive that peo­ple are mere­ly ‘step­ping through the door’ when their future seems unfea­si­ble. The con­ver­sa­tion hints at broad­er soci­etal issues, with the cashier indi­cat­ing that some have made pro­vi­sions for when such a dire time arrives.

As the nar­ra­tor departs, they are con­front­ed by Offi­cer Apeknuck­le, who urgent­ly advis­es them to leave the area due to immi­nent dan­ger from some out-of-staters con­nect­ed to a past con­fronta­tion. Despite feel­ing bewil­dered, the nar­ra­tor com­plies and learns that the chaos sur­round­ing their past actions has drawn unwant­ed atten­tion. In a poignant moment, they give the offi­cer a har­mon­i­ca intend­ed for a boy named Tonio, show­cas­ing both the nar­ra­tor’s hope and their deep­en­ing sense of urgency.

As they final­ly head out to sea on their boat, long­ing for sim­ple com­forts like food and com­pan­ion­ship, they also feel iso­lat­ed and vul­ner­a­ble amidst an approach­ing storm, both metaphor­i­cal­ly and lit­er­al­ly. The chap­ter paints a vivid pic­ture of grief, soci­etal despair, and the instinc­tu­al dri­ve for sur­vival against an often hos­tile back­drop.