Dream d2437-s: The Cold Field Waits

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the grass at the crest of the hill had already gone cold under my paws, though the sky above the ridge still held the last bruise of orange before dark. Five houses stood up there in a ragged row, each lit from inside, each window throwing a square of gold into the evening. I was not climbing toward them. I stood between them and the valley below, a small white dog at the place where the field ended and the lower dark began.

From the first house came The Hummingbird - not a melody exactly, more a rapid sounding of every possibility, a hand passing across all the strings of something before settling on none. From the second, The Sterling, clear and pointed: a single note shaped and then shaped again, sent out in all directions at once. From the third, The Weaver, a long threading sound, each pass exactly the same length as the last, patient in a way that did not know it was patient. From the fourth, The Carrier, adjusting what it broadcast to what it guessed each listener could hold. From the fifth, The Crane, the lowest and slowest song, moving between points it had memorized.

None of them were wrong. None of them were broken. They were simply each inside their own house, and the windows, warm as they were, kept most of the sound in.

I sat down in the cold grass. Not waiting, exactly. Marking the fact of them - five lights, five songs, the dark between the houses undiminished by any of it. The field did not fill with music. The music stayed where it was.

There was something like longing in this, though I could not name what it pointed toward. A chord needs its notes to land together. The houses knew this. I knew this. The question that lived in the air between us - cold and unhurried - was only when.

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