Dream d1389-s: Where Shavings Fall

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the path to the workshop was soft underfoot from last week's rain and Lano moved ahead of me with her nose low, reading the morning in long pulls. The clearing opened gradually - first the smell of fresh wood, then the light on it, and then the Wireman himself, bent over a long board at the bench outside, his plane making a sound like a slow breath.

He didn't look up. The curl of wood lifted from the edge and dropped at his feet, joining a pile of them. I stood and watched. There are things you don't interrupt.

Behind the workshop, on the other side of a low wooden fence, the Dreamer was crouched between rows of glass frames, each one pressed flat with a specimen inside - leaves, bark, something that might have been a wing membrane. She had a notebook open on her knee and was sketching one of the frames from three angles.

"The map table is clear," she said, without looking up. "Someone reorganized it."

"The Builder," I said.

"Mm."

Lano's ears went up. Both of them, straight, which she almost never does. She stood still in the middle of the clearing and turned her nose toward the northwest - not toward anything visible, just into the air.

The Weather Reader came around the side of the workshop carrying his portable array under one arm and a coffee tin in the other hand. He set the array on a stump and started unfolding it without ceremony.

"Still reading?" I asked.

"Hasn't stopped." He clicked the third leg into place. "Faint, but consistent. The consistency is the interesting part. It doesn't drift. Weather drifts. Everything drifts." He paused. "This doesn't."

The Wireman set down his plane. He looked at the board, then at the pile of shavings, then at nothing in particular. He picked up a cloth and wiped both hands. That was his way of saying something.

"How many packs are we short?" he asked.

"Two frames and a water carrier," I said.

"I have frames." He nodded toward the workshop interior. "Take them."

Lano sat down, still facing northwest.

"Cuidado," she said. Not loud. Almost to herself.

The Weather Reader looked at her, then at his array, then back at her. He wrote something in his notebook.

By midmorning the clearing held eight packs against the workshop wall and a crane standing to the side of them all, waiting, because the Philosopher had insisted on bringing the library wagon and someone needed to figure out the hitch. The Student was measuring the wheel axle. The Builder was measuring the path width. They weren't speaking to each other, which meant they were about to disagree loudly.

It was, I thought, the shape of departure.