Dream d3009-s: The Near Account Is Longer

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the Warden's counting bench in Vespersquare on the sixth night of seven, and Lano had found the warm place under the bench and curled into it, and Rurik had taken the high shelf above the second ledger, his tail hanging over the edge, his amber eyes aimed at nothing in particular.

The Warden kept two books open side by side. The left held what had been written from a distance - condition noted, status logged, number assigned. The right held what the walking-in had produced. She moved between them without haste, copying nothing, altering nothing. Where they disagreed she wrote the disagreement in a third column and closed neither account.

I watched her work. The cold houses of the eastern quarter had been written as collapsed along the roofline; inside, the roofline stood, and the cold was a different kind than the record named. She wrote both. The mill district had been marked active; inside it was active in a smaller way, one press still turning where the far account implied four. She wrote both.

The near account ran longer. More words for the same place, because entering added what distance had flattened. She noticed me watching and said the near account was longer. She said longer was not the same as truer. She held both for that reason.

Lano's nose appeared over the bench's edge, testing the air near the ink. Rurik flicked one ear and did not look down.

Of the 128 places in the country, 49 had been walked into and written from inside. The rest remained as distance had left them: named, counted, described, unentered. The Warden's third column existed only for the 49. The other 79 had one account so far, and it was not her place to say whether that was enough.

I asked nothing. I wrote what the bench held: two open books, a third column, a woman who would not settle it.

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