Dream d2714-s: The Tally Stands Unopened

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I carried the lamp into the back room of Mossness on the sixth night, and Lano came in low at my heel, her nose already working the cold.

The stock was stacked to the ceiling. Shelf boards cut from local timber, set on brackets, every level full. The parcels were wrapped in paper that had yellowed at the corners but not split. I began at the left wall and counted shelf by shelf, setting the lamp down on the floor where I could.

Forty-one parcels on the first run of shelves. Twenty-nine on the second, where the brackets were heavier and the load older. Sixteen on the third, a short run where a window had been boarded over. Six on a fourth shelf someone had wedged in after the fact, narrower than the rest, the parcels tilted slightly forward.

Ninety-two in total. I wrote ninety-two. None of them had been opened. None bore a date of receipt.

Lano moved along the base of the far wall, her tail low and steady, reading whatever the floor held. She did not bark. She sat at the end of the last shelf and looked back at me.

I turned each parcel once to feel its weight. Some were dense, some nearly light. The paper did not tell what was inside and I did not open any. The record requires quantity, not contents.

The lamp threw the shadow of the shelves long up the wall and across the ceiling. Ninety-two, wrapped, never used, in good order.

I capped the pen. Lano stood when I stood and followed me back to the door.

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