Dream d3106-s: The Interval Between Boards

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the writing bench sat close to the outer wall of Vesperwharf, and the smell of the harbor reached me even indoors, cold salt and something faintly chemical I could not name but had learned to notice. Two boards lay across the trestle. The first carried the date of the earlier visit in pale chalk strokes, not yet sealed. The second was blank.

The Tally-Reader set her count-board beside mine and said nothing at first. I inked the date onto the second board without disturbing the first. Both marks visible, both boards flat, the interval between them legible to anyone who cared to measure it.

The Bedrock-Reader came in from the outer passage, dust on his coat. He said the lower fuel drum was a quarter full. Not empty, not half. A quarter. The Horizon-Surveyor, who had just come back from the far edge of the sheet, said the nearest salvage cache they knew was the one at the iron armature field, three kilometers east, and that the last run had cleaned it nearly to the walls.

Lano had been lying under the bench. She came out now, ears flat against her skull, and stood at the threshold facing the door. A single bark, low and declarative. Not alarm exactly. More like a statement.

The Anomaly-Hand looked up from the cyan seam she had been tracing on the eastern wall map. She said: the next cache site is a guess. She said it plainly, no softening.

Rurik was on the high shelf above the maps, watching. His tail moved once, slow, then stopped.

The Warden of the Deep Stratum had not spoken yet. She stood by the fuel drum in the back passage and I heard the hollow sound as she tapped its side with one knuckle. A quarter. She came back in without comment and sat at the far end of the bench.

I finished dating the second board. The Relic-Watcher noted the monolith visible from the east window, its iron armature still upright in the low tide. He did not name what it was. Neither did I.

The Tally-Reader ran her finger down the count: one hundred and twenty-nine places on the sheet, thirty-six with journeys allotted, fifty-eight spoken, seventy-one still waiting. She did not round it.

Outside the harbor sound continued. The generator hum behind the wall was steady still, but I knew the drum and I knew what a quarter meant against the distance to the next known cache. Lano pressed close to my leg, warm and very still. I put my hand on her once and she did not move away.

The two boards stayed as they were: first visit, return visit, the interval between them unmarked except by the dates themselves.

--- pixel art a human surveyor at a writing bench, Working hands date both boards without sanding either mark away., desaturated slate and iron, pale cyan accents, 8-bit style

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