Dream d3261-s: Stone Span, Outward Worn

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the approach stones at Quillbridge tilted slightly toward the bridge, worn that way by the weight of passage. A single lamp at the near post threw amber across the moss that grew only on the downhill faces. Everything faced the crossing.

Lano went ahead. She moved through the lamplight quickly, small white shape on the stone span, and took her place on the far bank before I had reached the near post. From there she watched me with her ears forward.

The keeper stood at the midpoint of the bridge. She had been here before, or someone holding her office had. She did not cross to greet me; she observed that I had arrived and then looked back down at the water running beneath the span.

The relay clerk and the surveyor were already at work on the approach. The clerk crouched beside the first stone, reading its wear. The surveyor unrolled a strip of paper along the edge and began marking intervals in pencil. I did not interrupt them. The counting of departure lines takes patience.

On the far bank, the distant reader had a copy of the account open. They had crossed before any of us and stood now with the pages angled toward the lamplight, reading from the other side what had been sent from this one.

I walked to the midpoint of the bridge. The wear pattern was exactly as described: deeper on the outbound side, shallower on the return. I had read those words somewhere distant from here, and now I stood above the evidence of them. The record had been correct. There was nothing to add to that.

Below, the water ran without urgency. Lano had not come back across. She sat on the far bank beside the distant reader and waited.

The keeper came down to the near end and crouched beside the approach stones without touching them, studying the same wear the relay clerk had studied. They did not compare notes. Each made their own record of the thing.

I crossed to the far bank. Lano pressed against my leg - cálida - then moved a little ahead, nose toward the dark beyond the lamp's reach.

The bridge went on sending people out.

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