The lantern had been flickering for two weeks.
It hung over the back patio where they ate their evening meals and drank their morning coffee, creating asymmetrical pools of light that wavered and danced with every wind gust. Since Regan had been the first to notice it, he had dismissed it casually when he brought it up, filing it under things that still work well enough."
"It's fine," he'd said when Lila pointed out the way the light stuttered and dimmed. "Still gives us light. Still functional."
The way it struggled, however, bothered Lila more and more each evening as they sat under its untrustworthy glow. Before it agreed to cooperate once more, the lantern would flare brightly for a few minutes, bathing their dinner table in warm yellow light, then fade to hardly perceptible, leavin
