The Harbour
Office

The harbour does not sleep. Even before dawn, when the moon has gone thin and pale above the breakwater and the water below moves in slow, black swells, the harbour is already alive.

Ropes creak against iron cleats, and the cold carries the smell of tar and wet stone. A lantern sways in the rigging of a moored vessel, throwing its yellow light in arcs across the dock. Somewhere in the dark, a chain is being loosened, a hatch thrown open, a manifest read aloud to no one in particular.