Dream d2583-s: A Dozen Whole in One Glance

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the hillside rose just high enough that all twelve roofs came into view at once, without turning my head. I stopped there. Lano pressed against my leg a moment, then stepped forward and put her nose to the grass, reading something I could not.

I counted from the left and wrote each one down: the first was narrow with a low chimney, sealed; the second lower and wider, sealed; the third had a ridge mended with different stone but it held. All twelve sat in the new column, the one that meant cold and whole and not gone, and I moved through them left to right, putting marks where marks were asked for.

Rurik appeared at the fourth house, sitting in the gap between the low fence and the wall where the shadow ran deepest. He watched me pass and did not move from his spot until I had gone on to the fifth. At the ninth he was already on the slope above me, a black shape on pale rock, and then he was gone.

The count came out even. I noted it. Twelve roofs, twelve rows filled, all of them in the third column: present, cold, whole. The lit cities were elsewhere tonight, and the three places not left in good order were not among these twelve. These twelve had no letters waiting, no roads half-built, no roof open to the sky. They were simply here, and that was the thing to record, and I recorded it.

Lano sat at the foot of the hill while I wrote the last number. Her tail moved once. I closed the page against the wind and came down.

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