I slept a lot. My family sort of fell apart- my father, who was in a high government position, spending long hours trying to help figure out what we should do; and my mother checking herself into a mental institution- something that would have happened in a matter of time anyway, if the sun hadn't set, so my father and I weren't really all that surprised. My dad and I didn't really talk, and I was usually asleep by the time he got home, seeing as I generally went to bed at about 7:30.
I was sleeping when Beckman came. My dad came in at about 2:00 AM and shook my shoulder, and I groaned and turned over, squinting to see him in the ever-present moonlight. He looked sort of confused, slightly nervous, and I sat up. "Yea?" I asked, yawning rubbing my eyes. "Who is he?" I glanced at my dad and rose my eyebrows, "Who?"
"The boy. In the living room." I gave my dad an do-you-need-to-go-where-mom-is look and pulled myself out of bed. My dad walked slightly behind me, like a little boy, as I walked toward my bedroom door and looked into the living room. And there he was, this giant of a boy with the body of a wrestler-soldier-basketball-playing-diplomat and the face of a boy about my age, sitting on my couch and looking out at the moon, his eyes narrowed at it like he expected it to disappear just as the sun had at any given moment. I pulled my bedroom door closed again and turned to my dad, whose eyebrows were raised. "Who is that?" I asked him. He laughed nervously, "I don't know, that's why I was asking you." I bit my lip and turned back to the door- and then I swung it open and walked into the living room, right in front of the boy, blocking his vision of the moon outside our windows. "May I help you?" I asked him in my best imitation of a reception-desk woman. He grinned at me and stood up. "Hello. I presume you're Mr. and Miss Currer." My dad stepped in front of me and nodded, and I took a slight step backward as he replied, "Yes. Mrs. Currer isn't here, she-"
"Yes," the boy cutoff my dad rudely, but with the best intentions. "I'm aware of Mrs. Currer's present circumstances." My dad narrowed his eyes, "How is that?" The boy cleared his throat, "I've been assigned to your family-"
"Excuse me?" my dad raised his eyebrows, as did I. The boy smiled at the interruption and cleared his throat quietly before starting again, "My name is Acton Beckman..." he paused here, seemed to consider a bit, and then said, "But you can just call me Beckman" to which my dad rolled his eyes before Beckman continued, "I'm a member of the Parental Unit. We're..." he trailed off again, and my dad's skeptical face turned on. "We're sort of an international emergency plan. We're trained from very early childhood to deal with extreme conditions and to counsel people who deal with extreme circumstances." He bit his lip, "We've... never really been taken seriously... but, I suppose, now that these extreme conditions we've been training to deal with are actually occurring, people have figured we're the only option left." He took a breath before continued, "We're assigned a family in our early childhood and, along with general training, we're taught about the family we're assigned with, we follow your transactions and learn you personalities so that in case this day ever came, we could... assist you." My father looks a mixture of unbelieving and horrified. "So you're telling me you're a Big Brother come here to counsel us back into calmness now that you have an excuse to make the completely illegal actions you've been taking part in since childhood seem reasonable?" Beckman smiled patiently, "I'm just here to counsel and protect you and your family, sir." My dad scoffed, "Please. You can't be more than seventeen. Fat lot of good you'll do us if the riots break out again." I spoke of the chaos that occurred when the sun first disappeared. The majority of that chaos was something the media called "riots"- really, it was just people losing their minds and attacking anything that moved. I didn't even want to think about how many people died because of those "riots". I told you I never left my house, except when the moon first came out. Well, I didn't really have much of an option. The rioters didn't usually bother with neighborhoods, but if you left your street, you were likely to get mugged. The riots were calmed down as mental hospitals were forced to raise their maximum capacity numbers and the one still effective part of the government- the army- took the majority of the population away to loony bins and left soldiers lining the streets like Buckingham Palace guards. "I assure you, sir," Beckman said with a bit of a smirk, "I would do you a lot of good if the riots should start up again." My dad rolled his eyes and fell into his chair, which sat opposite the couch, and I rested on the arm next to him. "This is all a load of loony tunes. You haven't told me anything to prove that you know anything about this family. Why should I trust you? Why shouldn't I throw you out on the streets?" Beckman smiled, "You're Phillip Currer, 52 years old, born March 3rd, 1959."
"Anyone could know-"
"Your parents were Barbara and Joseph Currer, your mother died in childbirth and your father died when you were four years, three months, and eleven hours old; in a fatal car accident. You were at home, with a babysitter, at the time- her name was Abby Sullivan, fifteen years old-" he paused here to grin and say, "technically illegal to be left alone with you- and you were raised from then on by Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, who had been close friends with your parents, and were your legal god-parents." My dad gaped at Beckman but said nothing, so Beckman continued, "Your wife was born Eliza Keating-"
"She was born Mary Keating," my father interrupted, sort of nervously, sort of triumphantly. Beckman shook his head, "No, sir. Born Eliza Keating, legally changed her name at nineteen to Mary, when she cut herself off from her parents permanently. She met you eight months later, at a World Market, where she was buying the ingredients for Italian Soda." My dad's eyes were wide now, shocked, as he whispered, "Mary's parents died in an accident when she was just a child, like my father." Beckman shook his head again, "No, sir. Eric and Jane Keating are alive at present, living in North Dakota. Both retired." He smiled a bit, "My cousin, Arthur Bell, is assigned to them." My dad stared at Beckman with wide eyes for a moment, in silence, before standing up and walking out of the room, toward his bedroom. We watched him leave before Beckman looked back at me and smiled that same polite smile. I slipped off the arm and leaned against the back of my dad's armchair, just staring at the ceiling. "What do you know about me?" I asked. Beckman laughed, "Quite a bit." I continued to stare at the ceiling as I asked, "Where was I when the sun set?" Beckman replied immediately, not needing to think for a second, "On the beach, with Camille Lauren, your best friend." I sighed and closed my eyes, remembering that day, remembering when things made sense. "What was I wearing?" I asked, purely because I couldn't remember, and I wanted to perfect the vision in my head, of what we would have looked like then, missing the confusion of the sunset, simply sleeping through the last hours of sunlight we would ever know. "A white bikini. With gold straps. And huge sunglasses." I smiled and remembered, and then sighed as I sat up and looked across the room at Beckman, "How do you remember all this? I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday." Beckman grinned, "Dehydrated fruit and a pudding cup." I grinned at him, "Ah, the joys of non-perishables." He laughed, "You'll have non-dehydrated fruit soon enough. There are ways of farming without the sun." I looked outside, at the moon, and asked, "Why do you think everything is so..." I didn't know the right word. "So...fine? I mean, why isn't the Earth spinning off its axis or something?" Beckman looked outside and narrowed his eyes at the moon again. "I don't know...maybe..." He paused again, and looked over at me, "Maybe the sun's still there, but we just can't see it."
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