Dream d2745-s: Nine Against Sixty-Five

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the wall held the sheet and I counted what was lit.

The sheet carried sixty-five places. I went along the rows with a finger not quite touching the surface and found nine with a light still showing. Nine against sixty-five. I wrote the fraction at the foot of the sheet in the margin kept for that purpose, set the chalk in its tray, and stepped back.

Lano sat at my heel the whole time. She watched my finger cross the paper and did not look away until I stopped moving.

The hands that held the country held more than the sheet. The full count was two hundred and seventy-four places. Of those, a hundred and sixty-nine carried no mark, no ink, no name: they stood past the edge of what had been drawn. I moved to the margin at the right-hand side of the sheet, where the ink stopped and bare wall showed through, and I wrote the tallies there in smaller chalk: fifty-six of the undrawn places walked in the last thirty days, fifty-six past the edge on this round, twenty-eight of those alight. The ratio past the edge was larger than the ratio on the sheet. I noted that also and did not explain it.

Seven marks on the sheet pointed at ground a reader could not reach. The marks stood in ordinary ink, names and grid references both legible, but the ground they named was closed or gone or unreachable by any path the sheet described. I drew a line through none of them. They stayed as they were.

Lano nosed at the baseboard and came back and pressed against my calf.

The newest place past the edge was Quillvale Town, one day standing. I added it to the margin count and let the number sit.

Night five of eight in the map room. The sheet did not change while I looked at it. The count was what it was: nine lights against sixty-five, twenty-eight lights against fifty-six past the edge, seven marks pointing at ground the sheet could not deliver. I capped the chalk and turned away from the wall. Lano followed.

---