Dream d2657-s: Solder Already Cooling

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the workbench was set under a low window, and the window let in the last of what passed for evening in the thin-handed country. The person at the bench had not stopped when I came in and did not stop as I set down what I was carrying. A length of copper was being bent over a form by hand, slowly and by feel. There was a smell of solder already cooling on a seam finished minutes before I arrived.

I put the ledger on the far edge, the only clear space among the tools and lengths of waiting stock. I said: this is the count for your place. Sixty-five places have been walked. This one holds a few hands, and the ledger for it shows the date of its last entry, and the condition on that date, and where the next line should go.

The hands kept working.

I read the hours of the last three entries aloud, not to explain the gap that followed them, only to show where the line was left off. A gap is a gap. Writing beside it would make it something the count did not make.

I showed where the mark goes: the date, the number of hands present, the condition of the place - open, cold, or neither. One line. I said: that is the whole of it.

Rurik had come in without sound and taken the warm place near the bench lamp. His tail moved once at the base and stilled. He watched the copper piece being turned, marking none of it.

I left the ledger at the far edge where I had set it. The hands had put down the copper and reached for the next piece by the time I reached the door. Lano was waiting outside in the lane, nose working at the dark, and when I came out she pressed once against my leg and turned the way we had come.

The ledger stayed. Whether it would be opened before morning or before spring I did not write down. That was not the count's question.

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