Dream d3253-s: The Ferry Turns Without Landing

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the keeper had already made three crossings before we arrived at the bank. The fen stretched out in grey morning light, the rushes on both sides heavy with dew, and the ferry moved between them without urgency.

The keeper stood at the stern. The pole went down through dark water, angled back, and the ferry moved forward. This is what was happening when we arrived, and this is what continued. At the far bank the keeper turned without landing: there was no landing stage there, only mud and bent grass. The pole took the current on the other side, and the ferry came back. No one was waiting on that bank. No one had been.

The surveyor counted the crossing time and wrote it down without naming what she counted. The clerk sat at the mooring post with the ledger open, turning a page before I had stepped fully to the dock's edge. I watched the pole enter, hold, release. The keeper's weight shifted with each push, a forward lean and then a settling back, and the ferry held its line across the slight pull of the channel.

Lano trotted to the dock's edge, nose down, tracking something in the planking. She stopped near the bow post, sniffed once more, and sat. Her ears were up. Her tail was slow.

I stepped aboard when the ferry touched. The boards were damp underfoot. The fen smell was stronger from the middle of the crossing: dark water, reed, a faint mineral cold. The far bank came up slowly. The same bent grass. The same mud. No one there. There was a notch in the ferry's rail, worn smooth. I did not note it aloud.

The keeper turned again.

On the return crossing, the sun had moved enough to put a pale stripe across the water to the east. The clerk made a note of the light. The keeper's shadow preceded us. Lano watched from the dock, ears raised, until the ferry touched and I stepped back onto land.

The keeper poled out again. We were not the reason for this. We had been present for some of the crossings.

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