Dream d3473-s: A Keeper Sets the Tile

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the cold came off the paving in a thin seam, and Lano was already lifting her nose toward the square before I had turned the corner. The amber market-lanterns were still lit, their light crossing the tiles in long intervals. It was the fifth night.

The bench was on the east side, the kind that has been there long enough to have a patron: someone who oils the joints in autumn, someone who sweeps the ledge before a market day. Beneath the third tile from the left, where the grout had gone soft and the tile sat a half-finger higher than its neighbors, I knelt and worked the corner up. Lano sat back on her haunches and watched.

I left the sheet in the gap - a date and a place, nothing else - and set the tile back down as nearly level as I could manage. Then I stood and walked on.

I was at the far side of the square when the footsteps came - not following, aimed. I looked back. A keeper was crossing toward the bench, work-coat, bag over one shoulder, moving with the pace of someone working through a list of small tasks and this is one of them. Lano's ears came up. She did not bark.

The keeper crouched and took the tile up in both hands. I watched from the archway's shadow. The keeper looked at what lay in the hollow, then looked again. Not long. Then the tile went down - pressed level at each corner, tested once with a thumb.

The keeper stood and moved to the next thing.

The square did not change. The lantern light held where it had been. No one came to ask. The sheet stayed in the dark beneath the third tile from the left, a date and a place, and the bench went on being a bench. Lano pressed against my leg, her tail stilled, and we went on.

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