Dream d3408-s: Dust and the Closed Page

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where Lano was already at the bend when I came through the gate. The air smelled of cold road and the faint smoke of hearths not yet lit for the morning, and my footsteps sounded different on the packed earth outside the settlement than they had on the stones within. The notebook was under my arm, shut. I had not opened it since the last entry and I did not open it now.

The entry-keeper stood at the edge of the road. Not waiting - standing, the way a person stands when a task is complete and the next one has not yet arrived. The relay clerk was somewhere behind me; I heard the latch of the record-house settle into place without ceremony. Brackenspire went on in the sounds it made: a chimney drew, something moved in the yard, a door caught the wind and was steadied.

Lano had stopped at the bend to look back. Her ears were up, her tail low, curious rather than troubled. She watched me come and then turned and went on ahead, her small white shape moving through the morning shadow of the road-edge growth without hurry. I followed her.

The stacked stones were behind us. I did not turn to look at them. I knew they were there the way you know a thing placed carefully that does not require checking: they stood in the same moss and the same amber morning light they had stood in before I arrived and would stand in after. The place did not need my looking to go on.

The notebook bumped against my side with each step. I was aware of the forty-two entries the record had called on and no dream had spoken, not because I meant to speak them but the way you are aware of a room behind a closed door in a house you are leaving. The record calls on what it calls on. I carried what I carried.

The relay clerk came alongside me on the road without announcement, matching pace. We walked without speaking. The road ahead was pale where the growth pulled back and darker where it did not. Lano's tail moved in the distance.

Brackenspire produced no sound of farewell. The chimney went on drawing. The door was steadied. The stones were stacked.

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