The phrase that indicated a lost in thought feel is the "Midnight shakes the memory". It means that his train of thought is going double time in the dark or at night.
This happens when Ruby becomes disappointed with Tom when the hose leaks and Ruby can no longer dive. The two stop hanging out, and Tom loses her friendship.
The light, then, is the light that her friendship brought to his life. Her friendship is light -- it is happiness and is joy to Tom. When the two friends stop hanging out, the light goes out of the marsh. The author is saying the joy has gone out of Tom's life.
Answer:
The answer is Character vs. Society or it might be character vs character. I am pretty sure it is character vs society though.
Explanation:
In this story excerpt they are told to go into hiding and are told that they can no longer do certain things. That is because of the state of the world that the text was in. It is not character vs. character because two characters are not arguing or having any conflict and it is not character vs self because the character is not having an internal conflict about their confidence or mental health or whatever.
