Things are still open, but it’s that time of evening when folks are headed home. Conversations linger around dinner tables, coffee cups are topped off one last time, and the smell of good home-cooked food drifts through open kitchen windows.
Settle in for the night. Hold your loved ones close.
Destiny has never been much for late nights. Most businesses close their doors as daylight slips behind the ridges. The Silver Dollar Saloon and the Steak & Pub stay lively a little longer, laughter and conversation spilling out onto the boardwalk before fading into the cool mountain air.
One by one, shop doors are locked. Porch lights and old streetlamps flicker to life. Chimneys begin to breathe, sending thin ribbons of wood smoke drifting across yards and winding through the streets like evening fog. The warm glow of lamplight catches the smoke, and together they dance through the mountain ether.
The day’s work is finished.
The town grows quieter with every passing minute until only the creek, a distant screen door, and the occasional coyote remind you that the world is still awake.
And little by little…
Destiny goes to sleep.