Dream d2596-s: The Quiet That Holds Tools

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I crossed the works yard at Eldergate Town on a working day, and the yard was quiet, and Lano moved ahead of me along the near shed wall with her nose to the packed earth, and I noted the first thing I always note in a yard like this: the quiet was not the quiet of the ruins.

The shed doors were closed but not sealed. A barrow stood tipped forward on its toe near the second shed, ready to be taken up. A stack of rough-cut edging stone waited beside it, pale and even. The gates to the fill pit were latched but not chained.

I opened the ledger and wrote: works yard, Eldergate Town. Working day. Quiet. Tools in place. Materials present. No breach. No disorder visible.

At the Ruins of Frosting there are no tools. At the Ruins of Mossness the tools remain but they are wrong-placed, tipped to the weather. At the Ruins of Zephyrden there is a barrow too, but its wheel has gone and its tray is stove in and resting on the ground. Those entries are closed. This entry is not the same entry.

Lano circled the barrow once, not urgently, and sat down facing the far gate. I walked to the centre of the yard and turned slowly. Nothing moved. Nothing needed to move. The sheds were between their tasks, which is a different condition from being done with them.

The roads at Eldergate Town are unfinished. The yard that serves them is tended. I wrote both things and closed the column for this place and walked to where Lano sat, and she rose without being called, and we went out through the far gate onto the unfinished road, which was waiting, the same as the yard was waiting, which is what I had come to record.

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