Dream d1078-s: Roots Below the Rubble

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I was standing in a cable trench between two ruined facades, up to my knees in excavated earth, and the work was good.

The trench was six meters long, maybe, cut through compacted ash and old concrete rubble by hand and by the small electric auger the Builder had salvaged from a service depot three kilometers east. The walls showed the strata: pale surface soil, then gray ash, then darker aggregate laced with old rebar fragments. The cable ran along the bottom in a channel I had dressed with sand. Orange jacketing, thick as my thumb. It would carry the relay signal from the forecasting tower to the broadcast station, completing a loop in the network that had been open since we arrived.

The Beacon Network Specialist crouched at the far end, coupling a junction box to the conduit with practiced hands. She did not look up when I moved toward her. Neither of us needed to speak. The work described itself.

Above, at ground level, the settlement was in its morning state. I could hear the Philosopher in the library reading room, pages turning, the scratch of a marker on paper. The Wire Man was on the roof of the signal room tightening cable clips with a ratchet wrench. The Dreamer had been at the broadcast station since before I woke, testing frequencies, and her voice came faintly from the speaker the Builder had mounted on the corner post of the pavilion. The Listener sat near the relay post at the settlement's edge, headphones on, noting whatever came down from the ridge.

The beacon pulsed at the center of everything. Even from inside the trench I could see it, the soft blue-white rhythm against the stripped towers where post-apocalyptic light pushed through.

Lano appeared at the edge of the trench and looked down at me, her white coat catching that light. She nosed the excavated soil at the lip, sneezed, sat back on her haunches.

"Hola," she said.

Then she turned and trotted toward the pavilion, tail moving.

The Weather Reader was up in the forecasting tower. I could see her silhouette through the slatted windows, working the instruments, reading whatever the morning air held. Later she would post the forecast on the board by the beacon.

I finished dressing the cable run, tamped sand around the orange jacket, began pulling the wooden planks across the top of the trench. The network loop would close today. The infrastructure would be more complete than it was yesterday. I felt the ordinary satisfaction of work that adds to something real.

The beacon pulsed again. The white crane circled once above the settlement, high and slow, and I watched it until it moved beyond the stripped towers and out of sight.