Dream d2751-s: After the Last Drawn Roof

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Annex fell behind me on the track and I did not notice the exact moment. The last roofs were visible and then they were not, the rolling country ahead carrying nothing the sheet had ever named. Lano walked close to my left boot, her nose down along the verge. I stopped where the track crested a low rise and looked back. The roofs were shapes now, the lowest ones already cut by the horizon, and I entered the time in the margin of the sheet: the hour the drawn country ended.

65 places on the sheet. 9 of them showing a light tonight. I read the figures the way you read a ledger entry, one after the next, without stopping on any. 274 places in hand total, drawn and undrawn both. 169 carry no line on the sheet. 56 of those were walked within the last 30 days. The ink stopped. The working did not.

Past the edge, on ground the sheet does not reach, 56 places stand. 28 of them are lit. I wrote that down: more than half alight on ground the sheet cannot account for. 7 marks point at places no reader can reach from the drawing, entries that closed or roads that double back inside themselves. I did not correct the marks. I recorded the discrepancy.

Lano sat while I wrote. Her ears moved once, tracking something out in the grass to the right of the track. Then she settled, her chin down on her forepaws, watching the dark country ahead.

The newest place past the edge: Quillvale Town, 1 day standing. I entered it at the foot of the page with its name and its age and nothing else, because nothing else is yet known. That is the correct entry for a place one day old.

I folded the sheet along its existing creases and put it away. The track continued. The country continued with it, whether or not the sheet did.

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