Dream d3452-s: Lano on the Ridge

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the cart had been in the yard for as long as anyone there could say. No wheels, the axle ends resting on two flat stones, the boards weathered to a grey that matched the turf walls in the low morning light. I stood in the yard with the notebook under my arm, closed, and I did not open it.

The entry-keeper walked the perimeter of the yard once, their boots leaving shallow marks in the damp ground near the walls. They did not speak. The relay clerk stood at the gap in the south wall where a gate had been, or where a gate was expected, and watched the field beyond it, which was empty and sloped away.

The keeper of the place came out of the low doorway and looked at the cart. They looked at it the way you look at something you have looked at many mornings and do not need to describe. They put one hand on the near side board, briefly, then let it go.

Lano had gone up the ridge while the rest of us were still in the yard. I could see her from where I stood, a small white shape against the pale grey of the grass up there, nose into the wind. She did not bark. She sat.

The turf walls held the yard on three sides. On the fourth side, the slope. The cart sat level on its stones. Moss had come in along the lower edge of the near board and was staying there.

I did not write anything. I did not take the notebook out. The entry-keeper finished their circuit and came back to stand near the doorway. The relay clerk stayed at the gap. We were not waiting for anything that had not already happened or had not already not happened.

The keeper went back inside. A few minutes later smoke came from the chimney, faint and steady. The cart was still there. The ridge grass moved.

I walked to the gap in the south wall and stood beside the relay clerk. The slope was long and the bottom of it was already in shadow. Lano came down from the ridge at her own pace, her ears forward, her tail low and easy. She passed through the gap ahead of us and went a few yards down the slope and stopped and looked back.

The relay clerk lifted the strap of their bag onto their shoulder. I tucked the notebook more firmly under my arm.

The four turf walls were behind us. The cart with no wheels stayed where it was, in the yard, on its stones, the moss along its lower edge doing what moss does.

Lano turned back toward the slope and went.

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