Dream d3225-s: The Cloth Remembers

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the relay clerk arrived at the loft before the light shifted, carrying the oilcloth-wrapped record under one arm. The surveyor's two accounts sat inside it, each signed and double-dated - the stone readings from the first reckoning, the residency intervals from the nine witnessed passages - neither erased by the other in the keeping.

I spread the clean cloth across the low table beneath the small window. The relay clerk laid the parcel down on it. We did not open the oilcloth. The record was not meant for reading here; it was meant for the absent witness, who had been present for neither account, and to whom both would travel intact, uninterpreted.

The airing was for the cloth to hold the form. Nothing more than that.

Lano had come up the stairs after the relay clerk and found a position near the table's edge. She lifted her nose once toward the parcel, held it there a moment, then settled. Her ears stayed tipped forward for a long while.

Rurik came through the gap at the far rafter and took the crossbeam above the table. He looked down at the parcel with amber eyes that did not blink for a very long time.

The relay clerk said: the absent witness will not ask what it means. That is not their office.

I stood beside the cloth and watched the hour pass. The window let in a narrow column of light that moved slowly across the planking, not quite reaching the table. The parcel did not move. The cloth did not shift.

When the hour ended I folded the cloth's corners up over the parcel - not to seal it, only to let the cloth remember it had been held there.

The relay clerk took the record under one arm again. Lano had curled by the table leg by then, her muzzle on her forepaws. Rurik watched the relay clerk cross to the stairs, blinked once, and looked away toward the roof beams.

The absent witness would receive both accounts together: the stone faithfully reckoned, the intervals faithfully kept. I would not be present for that moment. That was the nature of the relay.

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