Dream d1456-s: Falling Glass

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the workshop clearing was too quiet for the work being done.

The Woodworker had the synthesizer's filter bank open on the bench, a row of capacitors arranged like teeth, and the air smelled of solder and pine resin. Outside, the Eye moved between her pressing frames in the garden behind the building, lifting dried specimens to the light. Lano lay under the bench, chin on paws, watching the Woodworker's hands.

Then the oscillator drifted.

Not much. A quarter-tone off pitch, then a half-tone, then back again, cycling without cause. The Woodworker set down his iron and listened. I watched him listen. He did not panic. He tilted his head, adjusted a trim pot, and the oscillator held for ten seconds before drifting again.

"That isn't the circuit," he said.

The Weather Reader was already checking her instruments. She had three: the aneroid barometer hung from the workshop eave, the hair hygrometer on a post, and the small digital unit she kept in her vest pocket. All three showed pressure dropping. The sky was clear. No front moving. No storm building.

"The glass is falling," she said. "Nothing in the atmosphere explains it."

The Builder had his diagnostic unit open on the worktable - a slate-gray panel covered in indicator lights. He was scanning relay station status, and I watched the lights blink from green to amber one by one, traveling outward across the map overlay, a slow tide.

"Five stations," he said. "Now six."

The Dreamer was standing by the oscilloscope the Woodworker used to trace waveforms. I remember seeing him raise his camera to frame the display. Then he didn't take the shot. He stood there with the camera at eye level, not shooting, looking at the waveform trace the way you look at something that reminds you of something you haven't thought about in a long time. I don't know how long he stood like that. When I looked again, his camera was at his side.

"The source is upstream," the Builder said. "Everything we've built from here to the coast is running compensation. When the compensation fails -" He didn't finish.

"The settlements go dark," the Weather Reader said.

The Woodworker set a small plane carefully in its slot on the tool rack. He did not hurry. "You built a road. Roads require maintenance. That is the work."

The Eye appeared in the doorway from the garden, holding a pressed frame. She looked at the Builder's lights. She set the frame down.

"We will be here," she said.

Lano stirred under the bench. "Quieto," I said - but Lano was already standing, ears up, nose pointing toward the path. The barometer kept falling. Behind us, the oscillator drifted again, catching something on the air that had no weather cause.