Dream d2848-s: The Word Stood at the Stall

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I carried the book to the market ground before the carts had finished setting out. The stalls along the east run were cloth and timber, some with lanterns already, and I walked the length of them with the book under one arm. Lano trotted beside me, ears up, nose moving at each gap between stalls where something had been set to cool. Rurik had come ahead and was already on a high cross-beam above the spice stall, watching the ground below with the slow patience he keeps when nothing has moved yet.

At the far end of the east run there was a stall I had not reached before. The stallholder stood behind it, sorting what looked like dry goods by size, not by kind. I stopped. I opened the book to the page where the name had been written. I asked her what this part of the market was called.

She said the name without looking up. It was the same name exactly.

I wrote nothing. There was nothing to write. The name was already on the page and the name she said was that name, letter for letter, without any change. I closed the book. Lano pressed against my leg and did not look at the stall but at the east, where the sky was beginning to change.

The name had been sitting in the book since it was set down and it was still the same word in the same order. She sorted the goods and did not ask why I had asked or what I was recording. The book held the name before I arrived. The book held it after.

Rurik dropped from the beam to a crate lid and sat, one paw folded, watching the stall from below. His eyes did not follow anything. The market filled around us while I stood at the edge of it.

I turned the page. The next name on the list had no drawing under it and no stall here that I could put my hand against. I wrote the date beside the name I had confirmed, then closed the book, and Lano turned east with me and we walked back along the run, past the lanterns, past the spice stall where Rurik no longer sat.

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