At the next gasp, everything pulls back into focus as the swinging bulb slides into the fluorescent light, bright and cleaner and whiter.

The pain in his chest has stopped; not gone, not remotely, but no longer getting worse. Breathing hard, he stares in incomprehension, first at the nurse, then the thermometer in Simon's hand.

I can't tell what's going on, he thinks dumbly.

The light's still flickering, after all, and he still can't hear a thing. Only the dead have ever looked that quiet.