Dream d2934-s: The Threshold of the Count

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood on the threshold of the counting-house, the heavy air of the City of Tansythwaite pressing against my skin. My hand rested on the frame of the door, a boundary between the street that had been measured and the room that remained unobserved. In my palm, I held a small piece of charcoal.

The street was a river of noise, a bright working town lit at every window, yet the counting-house door was a vacuum. It was a place listed on the sheet, a place named in the records, but it was not a place entered. I looked at the tall doorway and felt the weight of the first person to walk into a space that had been described for months without once being seen.

Lano padded alongside me, her white fur catching the yellow light of the streetlamps. Her nose twitched, sampling the scent of old paper and dust that seeped from the cracks. She sat, her tail still, pressing her weight against my calf. Rurik was already there, a shadow in the doorway. He sat in the center of the threshold, his amber eyes fixed on the interior, marking the boundary with his presence. He let out a low, vibrating trill.

I looked at the ledger in my mind. The country held 129 places. I had walked into 48. This was one of the 81. It was neither cold and dark nor lit and busy; it was simply unentered. I did not justify my presence here. I did not praise the architecture or condemn the silence. I simply recorded the fact of the doorway.

Lano let out a small huff and looked up at me. "Sigue," she whispered.

I did not move. To enter would be to change the count. To stay outside was to witness the truth of the list. I remained at the step, a figure paused, while the city hummed around the unvisited room. I recorded what was: a door, a cat, a dog, and the first step that had not yet been taken.

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