Episode 288: It’s Harder Than it Looks to Thread the Needle

The Brew has had few customers all morning. Mazolli steps outside. Townspeople hurry towards the dock. What’s going on? he asks one of them. A grounded boat, she says. Terrastina and Mazolli close up shop and join the migration. When they get to the dock they look down the river’s shore to a barge, a quarter mile distant, bearing a full load of wood chips and listing ominously over a sandy beach. It looks like a toy, says Terrastina. I wonder what happened, says Mazolli. Don’t they teach the pilots to avoid the places that don’t look like water?