Dream d3499-s: Where the Wood Went Smooth

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the stile at Quillfield stood lower than I expected, the two uprights darkened with years of grip, the crosspiece worn hollow in the middle the way water carves a basin, not by intent but by return. The hedge had been cut back beside it so the view opened to the field beyond, pale grass going silver in the last light, and the cut ends of the hedge bristled where the shears had been.

Lano went over first, light as nothing, and stood in the field waiting while I climbed. I felt the hollow in the wood under my boot sole, the exact impression left by everyone who had come before me, all of them pressing the same place in the same arc of step. The uprights were warm to the hand though the evening was cooling.

The keeper was working the far edge of the hedge line with a rake, drawing the cut branches into a low pile. He did not look up. There was only the sound of the rake tines and Lano's breathing and the field going quiet.

I took the sheet from my coat and set it on the flat top of the stile - the date and the place, nothing else - and weighted it with nothing because there was no stone to hand, and then I understood it did not need one. The worn hollow cupped it just slightly. The sheet settled into the concavity the way a leaf settles into a pressed place in soft ground.

The keeper raked. Lano put her nose to the post base and breathed in deeply, then sat back on her haunches and watched the field.

I climbed down and walked on. Behind me the sheet lay in the hollow of the crosspiece, the date and the place visible to the cooling air. The keeper finished his row and walked past without reading it. He set his rake against the hedge and looked out at the field for a moment, then picked the rake back up and continued.

The cut hedge ends dried at their own pace. The hollow in the wood was already there before I arrived and it would be there after. The sheet was in it now the way everything was in it, held by shape alone, by the fitting-together of one surface and another, with no agreement made and none needed.

Lano had already gone ahead into the field, her white shape small against the silver grass.

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