Dream d2750-s: A Name in the Stone

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the road went out through open grass and the first milestone stood at the verge of morning shadow, cut from pale limestone, the lettering worn but still legible. Lano nosed the base of it, circled once, and sat with her tail flat in the dew.

I bent to read the face. The stone named a distance and a place, and the place was one I had on the sheet. I found it there: sixty-fourth entry, no light beside its mark, but present, accounted for, ink dry and undisputed. The stone and the sheet agreed on what they said about each other.

I straightened. The milestone gave me nothing I did not already have written down, which was the right kind of news for a first milestone. The sheet carries sixty-five, and this one was among them. I noted that the stone was intact, the distance still cut into its face, the name still readable by anyone who stopped and looked.

Lano lifted her nose from the grass at my feet and trotted a step forward on the road, ears up, watching the way ahead.

I folded the sheet along its crease and put it away. The place the stone named lay behind me in the direction the distance pointed. The road in front ran on toward the rim where the ink stops. I set my pace and walked. The milestone remained where it stood in the open grass, saying the same thing it had said before I arrived, and would say after I was gone.

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