Dream d3007-s: Tools Laid Out, Unlisted

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the market register at Vespersquare had been read by me a hundred times and I had stood with it on the north face of the square and walked its columns with my finger, and the workroom that stood thirty steps east of the last column I had ever reached was not in it.

Lano had her nose to the base of the door before I had the register folded. I put it in my bag and she pressed forward and I opened the door.

The room was small. A single bench ran the length of the far wall. A figure stood at the bench with their back toward the entry, and tools were laid out on the surface in the order of their use: a plane, two chisels, a mallet, a length of cord. Shavings on the floor. A lamp on a bracket. No window.

I stood in the opening. Rurik came in from behind me and went directly under the bench and sat there with his amber eyes forward.

The figure at the bench did not turn. The mallet struck once. I took out the notebook.

In the register the square is described as: market, north face, twelve occupied stalls, three vacant. That describes the north face. This room is east. The notation did not fail; it did not look east.

I wrote: workroom, east of market, one occupant, one bench, tools in use at time of entry, no glass, lamp lit, not in prior account.

Lano sat down beside me and pressed her flank against my leg. I could feel her breathing. The mallet struck again.

What I had carried of this address was nothing at all - not a wrong account but no account - and what I found was this: a figure working at a bench by lamp. The condition written at distance was silence. The condition at the doorway was work in progress.

I wrote: not counted in error. Not counted because not reached.

The figure set the mallet down. The shavings on the floor caught a little of the lamp. Rurik watched from under the bench. Lano did not move.

I stayed the length of a page. Then I stepped out and Vespersquare was still lit, and the market was thirty steps west, and I had been thirty steps from this room a hundred times and had not come east.

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