Dream d2695-s: Sound Stone, Still Water

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stopped at the middle of the bridge and stood there a moment before I wrote anything down.

The bridge was old stone, low over a shallow river. The river was moving but not in any hurry. I could see the bottom — pale stones, a dark line of weed, the light from the sky making a flat bright streak across the surface. The banks on both sides were close. The bridge spanned them without trouble.

Lano padded out to where I stood and sat beside my boot. Her nose moved at the air coming off the water. I put my hand on her head once, briefly, and she leaned into it.

I took out the second book and opened it to the bridge's page. I read what was written there from the last passage: sound, no damage noted, no settlement of the keystones, mortar clean between the courses on both faces. I looked at the bridge now — at the upstream face, the downstream face, the parapet where I stood. The same. I checked the join between the second and third arch where a crack had been noted three passages ago, repaired with new mortar, darker than the old. The repair was holding.

I wrote: sound. Carrying nothing today.

That was the record. The bridge did not need more than that.

Lano moved to the downstream side of the parapet and looked over the edge at the water below. Her tail moved once, slowly. I finished writing and closed the book and looked downstream with her for a moment — the river bending away between low banks, the light flat and even, the day quiet. Nothing was crossing. Nothing had crossed. The bridge had been here before the round was drawn and would be here when the round was redrawn again, and it was sound, and that was what the second book was for.

I noted the time in the margin. We went on.

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