Dream d3435-s: Ink on Raked Lines

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the market had gone quiet hours before, but the clerk was still at the bench.

I sat a little to the left of the lamp, close enough to see the page, far enough that the light fell mostly on the clerk's hands and not on my notebook. The board behind stood empty, the chalk hooks still in their row, nothing chalked above the lines where the stall assignments are written each morning. The clerk did not look up. The date went in first, small numerals at the top margin, and then the raked lines - three horizontal, one diagonal - the marks for an open session with no stalls called. The nib moved steadily and the scratch of it carried in the quiet.

Lano had settled under the bench. I could feel the slight press of her against my left boot. She had been still for a long time, nose tucked toward her tail, though once a smell reached her from the direction of the far arcade and she raised her head and held it up for a moment before laying it down again.

The entry-keeper came through the passage between the grain stores and stopped at the board. Stood with a stub of chalk loose in one hand, reading the empty rows. Then the stub went back into the pocket and the entry-keeper walked on.

The keeper of the place moved along the perimeter of the open square, checking the ring-bolts where the awning ropes attach in the morning. Each bolt received a brief touch, no more. The keeper did not circle back.

I did not write anything. My notebook was open on my knee and I had stopped looking for someone to read it. The lamp threw a circle of amber across the page and across the cobbles just beyond the bench, and the board remained empty behind, and the square went on being the square - the cobbles holding whatever the day had left on them, the chalk hooks waiting, the smell of straw coming faintly from somewhere south of the arcade.

The clerk closed the ledger. Did not take it away. Set it flat on the bench beside the lamp and sat for a while with both hands folded. The lamp drew moths. Lano's breathing was audible in the quiet.

At some point the keeper crossed the far end of the square again and did not stop.

The board stayed empty. The raked lines were in the record. The date was written. The account of the night held what it held, and the market sat in it without asking.

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