Source A: The gauge beyond the causeway

The first time Sana stopped, I thought she had forgotten something. She stood in the middle of the causeway with her toolbox hanging from one hand and her head tilted towards the sea. Behind us, the harbour controller’s voice crackled from the radio: the tide would cover the road in thirty-eight minutes.

Sana did not answer immediately. She was listening to the faulty tide station at the far end of the causeway. Its warning bell produced three uneven notes, a pause, and then another note that seemed to arrive too late.

“Not dead,” she said. “Arguing.”

I could hear only a broken bell. Sana heard a diagnosis.

We continued towards the station, a narrow metal cabinet fixed to a platform above the rocks. The sea was still some distance below us, but strips of water had begun to shine between the stones of the causeway. Sana opened the cabinet and arranged her tools in a straight line: meter, cutters, brush, cable. There was no searching and no hesitation. Each object seemed to arrive in her hand before she needed it.

She examined the connections without touching them. “Salt in the lower socket,” she said. “The signal reaches the gate, but the timing is wrong.”

The controller called again. Twenty-nine minutes.

Sana cleaned the socket, replaced a length of cable and watched the figures flicker on the small display. For several seconds they rose smoothly. Then they jumped.

“Better,” I said.

“Plausible is not the same as right.”

She checked the electronic reading against the painted scale on the platform and then lowered a measuring line towards the water. Her three results differed by less than the width of my little finger, yet she frowned as if the sea had attempted to deceive her personally.

The controller’s next message was no longer a reminder. “Return now. The western end is already flooding.”

I looked back. The causeway had become a dark thread with water stitching across it. The mainland appeared close enough to touch and suddenly impossible to reach.

Sana could have closed the cabinet. Instead, she removed the new cable and began again.

“The floodgate takes twelve minutes to close,” she said. “The harbour team needs the local rise, not an estimate from the station along the coast.”

Her voice was calm, but calmness did not make the water retreat. It was over my boots now, pressing cold fingers through the seams. The radio counted down: sixteen minutes, then eleven. Sana’s movements remained exact, although the world around them had lost its edges. Waves slapped the platform. Wind tore the controller’s words into scraps.

At last, the display settled into a steady sequence. Sana compared it once more with the painted scale.

“Now it’s telling the truth.”

She transmitted the reading. Almost at once, a horn sounded from the harbour: the floodgate had begun to close.

We did not walk back. By then, the centre of the causeway was beneath fast-moving water. A rescue boat reached us seven minutes later. One of the crew pulled me aboard and shouted at Sana for making them launch in worsening conditions. She accepted the accusation without defending herself. She simply held the toolbox against her chest and watched the station’s light continue to blink.

Later, the controller told us that Sana’s repair had given the harbour team nine extra minutes. The gate had closed before the highest water arrived. The estimate from the neighbouring station would also have triggered the gate, but later and with less time to check that it had sealed completely.

Two people had crossed dangerous water to collect us. Dozens of homes stood behind the gate.

When I asked Sana if she would make the same choice again, she looked past me towards the causeway.

“Is the signal still steady?” she asked.