Speaker 1: US studios.
Speaker 2: There is a canal that runs through the town of Millhaven,
Speaker 2: and at the place where the old road meets the water,
Speaker 2: there is a small drawbridge. It is not a grand bridge.
Speaker 2: It does not carry thousands of commuters or support the
Speaker 2: weight of freight trains. It is a modest thing, painted
Speaker 2: the color of slate, with iron rails that have gone
Speaker 2: smooth from years of hands resting on them. The breech
Speaker 2: raises and lowers on a schedule that every one in
Speaker 2: town knows by heart, and the person who keeps that
Speaker 2: schedule is a woman named June. June has worked the
Speaker 2: bridge for seventeen years. She arrived in Millhaven on a
Speaker 2: Tuesday in late summer carrying a single suit case and
Speaker 2: a Thermas of tea. She had driven north from the
Speaker 2: city without a plan, following the river until the roads
Speaker 2: narrowed and the building. The cabin is no bigger than
Speaker 2: a garden shed. Inside there is a chair with a
Speaker 2: cushion that has lost most of its foam, a small
Speaker 2: table with a kettle and a single burner, a window
Speaker 2: that looks out over the canal, and a row of
Speaker 2: switches mounted on the wall. The switches control the bridge
Speaker 2: when June flips the first one. The bridge begins to rise.
Speaker 2: When she flips the second, it lowers. The mechanism makes
Speaker 2: a sound like a long, slow exhale, and the gears
Speaker 2: turn with a grinding that is more musical than mechanical,
Speaker 2: more like a cell being played very softly than a
Speaker 2: machine doing its work. Most mornings, June arrives before the
Speaker 2: sun clears the tree line. She walks from her apartment
Speaker 2: on Maple Street a seven minute stroll along the canal path.
Speaker 2: The path is lined with willow trees whose branches hang
Speaker 2: low over the water, and in the early light, the
Speaker 2: canal looks like a ribbon of silver laid across the ground.
Speaker 2: She carries her thermos and a small paper bag with
Speaker 2: whatever she picked up from the bakery the evening before.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it is a croissant, Sometimes it is a cinnamon roll.
Speaker 2: Occasionally on Fridays it is a slice of apple pie
Speaker 2: that old missus Chen saves for her. The first boat
Speaker 2: of the day usually arrives around six thirty. It is
Speaker 2: a small sail boat, white with a blue stripe, skippered
Speaker 2: by a man named Harold, who has been sailing the
Speaker 2: canal since before June started working the bridge. Harold does
Speaker 2: not need the bridge raised. His mast is short enough
Speaker 2: to pass underneath. But he always waves, and June always
Speaker 2: waves back, and that exchange is the first conversation of
Speaker 2: her day. The first raising comes around seven fifteen. A
Speaker 2: barge loaded with lumber heads up river from the mill,
Speaker 2: and the bridge must go up to let it pass.
Speaker 2: June flips the switch. The gears grind their slow song.
Speaker 2: The bridge rises. The barge slides underneath, its deck, stacked
Speaker 2: with pale wood that smells like fresh rain. The captain
Speaker 2: calls out a thing. June nods, The bridge lowers, the
Speaker 2: gears settle. The cars that had been waiting on either
Speaker 2: side begin to cross, their tires humming on the iron grates.
Speaker 2: June keeps a log of every crossing. She writes the time,
Speaker 2: the direction, and whether it was a boat or a vehicle.
Speaker 2: She has filled forty three note books in her seventeen years.
Speaker 2: The note books are stacked on a shelf in her apartment,
Speaker 2: each one labeled with a year in her neat handwriting.
Speaker 2: She does not review them often, but she likes knowing
Speaker 2: they are there, a record of every small thing she
Speaker 2: has done, a proof that the days were not empty.
Speaker 2: By mid morning, the canal is busy. Pleasure boats drift
Speaker 2: up from the marina to the south. A kayaker passes
Speaker 2: through every Tuesday and Thursday, always at ten o'clock, always
Speaker 2: wearing a yellow jacket. Two boys in a canoe paddle
Speaker 2: through on weekends, arguing about which direction to go, their
Speaker 2: voices carrying across the water like birds. June raises and
Speaker 2: lowers the bridge for each of them. She has learned
Speaker 2: to time the raising so that the bridge is fully
Speaker 2: up by the time the boat reaches it, and fully
Speaker 2: down before the next line of cars builds up on
Speaker 2: either side. It is a rhythm, and she knows it
Speaker 2: the way a musician knows a song. At noon, June
Speaker 2: takes her break. She leaves the cavern door open and
Speaker 2: sits in her chair with her thermos and whatever food
Speaker 2: she has brought. Sometimes a fisherman walks up from the
Speaker 2: river bank and sits on the low wall beside the canal,
Speaker 2: and they talk about the weather, or the fish, or
Speaker 2: the town council's latest plan to repave the high street.
Speaker 2: The conversations are easy and unhurried. They end when someone
Speaker 2: ends them, not when someone has to leave. The afternoon
Speaker 2: brings different traffic. School buses cross the bridge at three fifteen,
Speaker 2: their yellow bodies bright against the grave of the road.
Speaker 2: A delivery truck passes through at four, heading to the
Speaker 2: hardware store on the far side. An old man walks
Speaker 2: his dog across the bridge every afternoon at four thirty,
Speaker 2: and the dog always stops in the middle to look
Speaker 2: down at the water, as if it is trying to
Speaker 2: understand what is moving below. June has named the dog.
Speaker 2: She calls him Captain because he walks with such authority,
Speaker 2: his tail held high, his nose in the air. The
Speaker 2: old man does not know this. It is June's small
Speaker 2: private thing, a name given to a creature she will
Speaker 2: never speak to, in a place she will never leave.
Speaker 2: The last boat of the day usually comes around five.
Speaker 2: It is a wooden sail boat, old but well maintained,
Speaker 2: skippered by a woman named Dora, who sails up from
Speaker 2: the coast to visit her sister in Millhaven. Dora always
Speaker 2: has fresh peaches in the summer and preserves in the autumn,
Speaker 2: and she always brings something for June. A jar of
Speaker 2: plum jam, a bag of dried apricots, once a hand
Speaker 2: knitted scarf in a shade of blue that matched the
Speaker 2: canal in winter. June lowers the bridge for Dora the
Speaker 2: same way she lowers it for every one else. The
Speaker 2: gears grind, the bridge settles, the resume, but there is
Speaker 2: something about the last crossing of the day that feels different,
Speaker 2: a quiet punctuation, a period at the end of a sentence.
Speaker 2: After five, the treffet finds a few cars cross. In
Speaker 2: the early evening, a cyclist passes through at six. By seven,
Speaker 2: the canal is still, and the only sound is the
Speaker 2: water moving against the pilings and the occasional call of
Speaker 2: a bird settling into the willows. For the night, Tune
Speaker 2: does not close the bridge at a fixed time. She
Speaker 2: stays until the last boat has passed, or until the
Speaker 2: light is too low to see the water clearly. She
Speaker 2: checks the mechanism one final time, makes sure the gears
Speaker 2: are clean, locks the cabin, and walks home along the
Speaker 2: canal path. In the evening, the willows are dark shapes
Speaker 2: against the sky, and the water is black glass, and
Speaker 2: the only light comes from the houses on either side
Speaker 2: of the canal, their windows glowing with the warm amber
Speaker 2: of lamps and televisions and lives being lived. She does
Speaker 2: not think of her work as important. She does not
Speaker 2: think of it as small, either. She thinks of it
Speaker 2: as hers. The bridge raises, the bridge lowers, The day
Speaker 2: moves through her like water through a gate, and she
Speaker 2: is the one who controls the floe. Not with power,
Speaker 2: but with presence, not with force, but with the simple
Speaker 2: act of being there. On quiet evenings, June sits on
Speaker 2: the low wall by the canal and watches the last
Speaker 2: light fade. She drinks her tea, She listens to the water.
Speaker 2: She thinks about the crossing she will make tomorrow, and
Speaker 2: the one after that, and the one after that. The
Speaker 2: bridge will be there, She will be there, The gears
Speaker 2: will grind their slow song, and the world will pass
Speaker 2: through her gate, one boat, one car, one ordinary crossing
Speaker 2: at a time, And that is enough. That has always
Speaker 2: been enough. Tonight, as she walks home along the canal path,
Speaker 2: June hears the faint sound of the water moving under
Speaker 2: the bridge behind her. It sounds like breathing, like the
Speaker 2: town itself is breathing, slow and steady, in and out,
Speaker 2: in and out. She pauses for a moment and listens.
Speaker 2: Then she continues home. Her footsteps soft on the path,
Speaker 2: the thermos empty, the day complete. The bridge stands in
Speaker 2: the darkness, behind her patient and still waiting for morning.