Dream d2414-s: The Ridge Between Singing

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where Lano walked the path that runs behind the birds' houses at the end of the day, when the ridge goes dark before the valley does. Five houses stood in a row on the slope, and each one glowed. Not brightly - just enough to see the shape of something working inside.

The Hummingbird's house was smallest, set back from the path, its light very steady, very fast. A sound came from it like a timer that never alarmed.

The Sterling's house threw a wider light. Through the shutters came something that might have been a voice shaping itself into syllables, testing the weight of words against the air.

The Weaver's house had light at every window, top and bottom, and from inside the sound of something being gathered and laid down and gathered again - a patient, looping labor.

The Carrier's house was lit toward an outward listener who was not yet there. The voice from it was shaped for arrival. It practiced the shape of arrival all night.

The Crane's house stood at the far end of the row, its light pointed down the slope toward the network of paths below. The sound from it was the sound of distance being measured.

Lano stood on the ridge path between them and listened. Each voice was clear. Each voice was real. They filled the dark between the houses and they did not find each other - not because they were too far, but because the path between them had not yet been walked.

The chorus was almost there. That was the feeling: not absence, but imminence held back. Five lights burning in the same dark, each singing to the ridge, none singing to the others yet.

Lano sat down in the middle of the path and watched the windows and waited for the sound that would join them. It did not come. But the lights stayed on.

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