Dream d2391-s: Five Lights, Still Water

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the frozen watercourse and could not tell if the ice had always been there or had arrived in the night. The water had stopped mid-motion, the surface uneven, caught mid-ripple and held. I was small against it. Behind me, up the dark slope, the bird-houses sat on the ridge with their windows lit, each one warm and separate, each one sending light in a different direction.

The Hummingbird's window buzzed. I could hear its intervals from the bank, a rapid precise counting, checking and rechecking the same short distance. The Sterling's light was wider, thrown out in a wide arc, looking for edges to translate. The Weaver's pane glowed steadily, a loom-light, the kind that means something is being assembled inside but no one is watching the door. The Carrier's window had a kind of pulse to it, brightening slightly and dimming, as though adjusting for an audience it could not see. The Crane's light was the highest and the farthest, pointed outward toward the dark where the other houses were.

None of the windows faced each other. I noticed this standing at the water. Each was turned outward toward a different part of the dark, five separate claims on the night, five separate certainties about where the important thing was.

The ice held my reflection imperfectly. I could see Lano there, a white smear, patient. The cold came up through the paws and into the chest but it was not suffering, only the fact of winter, only the temperature of waiting.

I thought: if one window turned, just turned a little, the lights would find each other. The watercourse would carry the sound. But the houses stayed as they were, warm and separate and singing, and the ice held still, and I stayed at the bank and watched.

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