Dream d3204-s: The Stile, Then the Field

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the relay clerk had bundled both accounts into a single parcel before I left the waystation at the edge of Palewick. The first from the surveyor: stone by stone, each entry dated and signed. The second from the nine residencies: ninety moments, two dated accounts that had traveled together without either erasing the other. Together they made a weight that sat between my shoulder blades and shifted when I walked.

Lano ran ahead at the stile. She cleared it in one leap, four legs tucking neat, and landed soft on the green field beyond. She turned immediately, nose already working the grass, tracing something back and forth in a short arc, then lifted her head and looked at me.

I climbed the stile more slowly. The parcel shifted. I took it against my chest on the top step to keep it balanced, then stepped down. The field grass was still damp.

Lano pushed on to the next hedge. She pressed through a gap low in the base, trotted along the far side, came back through the same gap, then trotted back toward me and sat. Ears up. Nose steady.

The road ahead was clear. That was all she had to tell me.

I adjusted the pack strap. The parcel settled back between my shoulders.

The absent witness was somewhere forward, in a part of Palewick I had not yet walked. The relay clerk had left me no instructions beyond the essential ones: carry it whole, hand it over, witness the moment it is received. Do not summarise on the way. Do not decide what it means before it arrives in other hands.

I walked on. Lano trotted ahead.

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