Dream d2970-s: Narrower Than Written

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I entered the great room of the Ruins of Glenhaven and found it smaller than the sheet had said.

The sheet gave the width as forty-two paces. I walked it heel to toe and arrived at thirty-three. Lano followed the base of the far wall with her nose to the stone, reading what she read there, unhurried. I wrote thirty-three in the margin over the crossed-out forty-two. The sheet had been composed by someone who had not stood in this room, and I did not hold that against the sheet.

The Keeper of the Survey stood at the south end and waited while I walked the length. Rurik had come ahead at the threshold and now sat on a low ledge of dressed stone near the hearth, amber eyes open, watching nothing in particular. The high windows showed a pale sky that gave no useful light, only the suggestion of height.

Forty-two to thirty-three. The room was smaller and was still the room. Nothing had been lost in the correction. I did not add an explanation beside the new number. The number was enough.

I asked the Keeper whether the name should also change. The Keeper said: the name is great room. I said: yes, it can stay. A room can be great at thirty-three paces. We were agreed without discussion.

I added the Ruins of Glenhaven to the short column. That made forty-nine. The long column held a hundred and twenty-eight and would hold them until the end of the road or the end of the residency, whichever came first.

Lano pressed close against my leg for a moment and then moved off again, still interested in the walls. Rurik had not moved from the ledge. He blinked once, slowly, at the far window.

"Menos," Lano said, in the way dogs say things, which is with their body and not with words, and I understood her well enough.

I capped the marking instrument and stood in the room that was thirty-three paces and had been listed as forty-two. The sheet would carry both numbers now, in the order they were learned. That was the method. That was what the residency asked for.

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