Indigo Paddle, Overnight Gradient

A wooden stirring paddle pulled from the vat just before dawn, leaned against the whitewashed wall to drain. The colour runs from near-black at the submerged end through every register of indigo down to a pale ghost-blue at the grip, thirty years of use written into the grain. I came back three mornings in a row for this light — the one hour when the shed's north-facing window throws a flat, shadowless grey that lets the gradient speak without interference.