Dream d2464-s: The Folded Coat

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I was standing in the vestibule of the Council Hall, and there was a row of coat-hooks along the stone wall, and most of them held something: a scarf, a cloak, a long oilskin still damp from outside. One hook held a folded coat, not hung but folded and set on the peg as though someone had left it neatly for collection. I did not touch it.

Lano was nearby, close against my leg, while I held the minutes ledger, the real one with the cloth cover that has gone soft at the corners from years of handling. She was reading backwards through it, one page at a time, and the candle on the vestibule table was making the ink hard to follow. She said, without looking up, that she was trying to find the last time the Convener had signed the attendance column, and that she had already passed through six months without finding it.

The Hall itself was open behind us, the long table unoccupied, the standing seats marked but empty for the night. The Scriptorium Annex seat still had its placard. The Convener's seat still had its placard. Nothing had been removed. The removal would require a vote, and votes require a quorum, and the attendance column was the problem.

Lano turned another page. She said she thought she had found it, a signature, but it was the Scribe's hand and not the Convener's. She noted it anyway and kept going.

The folded coat did not move. Outside, the seven places the Hall had been watching were dark to the seeing, not gone but unreadable, as though the line of sight had simply failed on all of them at once. The Hall had not caused that. The Hall was still open. It was only the minutes that were difficult tonight, and the candle, and the coat on the hook that no one had claimed.

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