The Ship and the Silent Line

A narrow river winding through flat marshland in East Frisia on a cold November night, a huge new cruise ship moving slowly stern first between low grassy dykes, its towering white hull and many decks of windows blazing with white light, hull and funnel plain and unmarked, two small tugboats with bright floodlights, high above the river a heavy double line of conductors hanging dark between two towering grey steel lattice masts on the banks, black fields and a few dark farmhouses beyond, a row of spectators in winter jackets seen from directly behind on top of the dyke, the small blue-white screens of their cameras glowing.