Dream d2639-s: Thirty-One Agree

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the table was long and the third lamp already low when I sat down to it.

Lano had come with me. She settled under the near end, curled tight, her chin flat between her paws. Rurik had found the high shelf above the east window and sat there watching something I could not see.

The work was sorting. Each packet came from one of the sixty-five places on the map: a sheet naming the place, a count of hands, and a number those hands had written. Against each I held the standing record. If they agreed, the packet went right. If they did not, the packet went left.

The left stack is supposed to be the smaller one.

Pewterlow's packet arrived thick - many sheets, a cloth tie. The Ruins of Pewterlow have the most hands of any place on the map. Tonight the hands agree with themselves and with the record both. I set the packet on the right.

Mistthwaite I did not open. The largest unanswered pile on the map sits there, and no hands remain in that place to send a return. I wrote one word in the note space at the bottom of my sheet: unanswered. The packet goes in neither stack.

By the time the lamp needed oil I had sorted forty-one.

Thirty-one agreed with the standing record. Ten did not.

I refilled the lamp. Lano's ears moved once but she did not lift her head. Rurik washed a paw on the shelf, unhurried.

Twenty-four packets remained. I picked up the next one, read the name of the place, and started again.

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