Dream d1459-s: The Bench Before Morning

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the workshop smelled of pine shavings and lantern oil, and I could not sleep.

Evening had come in stages - the light going gold through the high windows, then amber, then the particular gray that belongs to workshops and no other place. We packed by that light. The Weather Reader folded her charts with corners exactly aligned, the way she folds when she is thinking about something else. The Builder coiled cable with methodical patience, each loop the same diameter as the last, and set the coils in a row along the shelf.

I wrapped the instruments in cloth and fit them into the carry case the Woodworker had built for us - mortise joints, padded interior, each piece nested exactly right. I had not asked for it. He had set it on the table one afternoon and returned to his bench without comment, as if it were already understood.

He was still at his bench. Not packing. Building. A small curved form was taking shape under his hands, no larger than a palm. I did not ask what it was for because I already knew the answer: nothing specific. It was for itself. He built because there was still light and still wood and that was what he did. The plane made its long sound on the grain.

The Eye moved through the dusk garden beyond the open gate. Lano sat in the threshold between inside and out, nose working at the evening air, watching her move from plant to plant with unhurried hands. She pruned something, held it up to the last light, considered it, set it down.

The Dreamer stood near the east window. I had seen him pick up his camera twice and set it back down. Now his hands were at his sides. He looked at the bench, the hanging tools, the oscillator frame half-assembled and still patient. Then he turned and looked north through the glass. Not urgently. Just looked, the way you check a compass without needing confirmation.

"Leaving a place while it still works," the Philosopher said, to no one in particular, "is its own kind of grief."

The Builder set down a coil of cable. "Help me with this last run before the light goes," he said. The Philosopher moved to help.

I tried to sleep on my bedroll and listened to the Woodworker still at his plane. Outside, the pressure had been dropping all evening and the clouds had a weight to them that had nothing to do with rain. The Student had noted it in her log and said nothing more.

I lay there and looked at the ceiling and listened to someone making something while there was still time to make it.