The Riverboat's Night Passage: Paddlewheels turning slowly toward morning

Isla Merriweather

The river moves slower after midnight, and so does everything aboard. This is a quiet passage through that hush: the steady creak of the paddlewheel, low voices fading from the deck, lantern light thinning to nothing, and the long dark water sliding past unseen. Told at the pace of a boat with nowhere urgent to be, it settles the mind the way a slow current settles silt, until morning arrives without your noticing the night had passed at all.