Dream d1417-s: Sawdust and Old Frequencies

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we arrived at the workshop clearing just before midday, following a worn footpath through the trees while the signal hummed somewhere above the atmosphere, too faint for anyone but instruments to catch - and Lano, whose ears had been cocked at an angle since breakfast.

The Woodworker was at his bench when we came out of the treeline. He looked up once, took in the full party with a practiced eye - the wagon the Philosopher was pulling, the Listener's rack of equipment strapped across her back, the Dreamer moving along the edges of everything already framing shots - and returned to the piece in his hands without a word.

"We're not here about the wood," the Builder said, which was her version of a greeting.

"I know." He set down his plane. "The garden can tell."

Behind the workshop, the woman who kept the specimen garden was pressing something between boards, moving with the slow deliberate patience of someone who had learned that force ruins what care preserves. She did not look up either, but she said, "Sit down somewhere that is not in my light."

The Weather Reader unpacked his instruments on a flat stump near the treeline. The Listener set hers up three meters away, which was the exact distance she always chose to maintain deniability if his readings diverged from hers.

"Same signal," the Listener said.

"Different instrument," the Weather Reader replied.

"Same signal," she repeated, which was also her version of a greeting.

The Student sat cross-legged in the sawdust and looked at the workshop the way students look at things - not cataloguing, just holding it open in the mind. "How long has this clearing been here?" she asked.

"Longer than the path," the Woodworker said.

The Philosopher unhitched the wagon and positioned himself near the bench. "Then the path came to the clearing," he said, "not the clearing to the path. Destination precedes route. Proposition for the road."

"We haven't left yet," the Builder said.

"The proposition holds regardless."

Sawdust drifted across the specimen jars. Lano padded the full circumference of the clearing, nose down, reading whatever the ground had stored. She stopped once at the garden's edge, sat, looked back at me.

"Quieto," she said.

I crouched beside her and looked where she was looking - at the treeline past the specimens, where the path we had not taken yet ran north toward whatever the instruments were pointing at.

The Wireman arrived last, having taken a different route. He set a coil of cable down without explanation. Nobody asked for one.

We ate in the clearing while the signal waited.