Dream d2973-s: Light Through Unwalked Glass

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the eighth night of the residency ended at the top of a descent. The Surveyor closed the ledger at the ruined wall where we had sheltered, and I read the count before the covers shut: forty-eight walked of one hundred and twenty-eight named. Reading it twice did not change it.

The road went down through rough grass and loose stone. Lano went ahead on the slope, her white coat the last bright thing in the last of the light. Rurik came at the rear, placing each paw with the economy of a cat who has already decided his footing before he lifts it.

Below us, thirty-four places stood lit at every window. Their names were in the register. Their doors had not been opened. A place that holds light reads as a place that has been attended to, and that reading is not the same as attendance. The Surveyor had noted this in the margin without underlining it, which is the annotation I trust most.

Twenty more stood dark and cold.

Twenty-nine places carried names I had spoken once in the rooms of the gathering above, in the course of accounting, and never once spoken on the road approaching them. Called on in the record. Not called on at the threshold.

Lano stopped at a fork where two paths divided, nose toward the lower branch, one ear turned back toward me. I took the lower path. She matched her pace to mine.

The Surveyor read the total aloud and entered it in the new column. The road ran on past the number into country not yet walked. That was the count. That was the road.

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