Dream d3500-s: The Grass Holds It Level

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the long field at Quillfield lay open in low amber light and the cut grass was down in rows across all of it, each row a darker band between the paler stubble. The rows ran from the near end to the hedge and stopped there. You could see where the work had found its edge at the base of the hedge - a clean line, the last row laid right to it and not a length past.

Lano moved ahead of me along the nearest row, nose tracking the length of it, reading something in the cut-grass smell. Her tail moved once. The relay clerk stood near the field's entrance with her ledger held flat against her side. The entry-keeper had walked the rows ahead and stood now near the hedge end without moving.

I carried the sheet. It had the date written at the top and Quillfield below the date and nothing else. The keeper of the place came across from the far side carrying a long fork. He walked along the second row turning the cut grass as he went - lifting and laying, lifting and laying - and he did not look up when he reached our end of the field. He turned and went back.

I set the sheet at the join of two rows where the cut grass lay thickest. It settled flat without weighting. The stubble came up around its edges a little, holding it at the level of the cut.

The keeper came back on the third row. When he reached the sheet he stopped, not for long, and looked at it without kneeling. Then he walked around the outside of where it lay, giving it the same wide step he would give a tool left in the field. He went on.

The entry-keeper had not moved from the hedge.

Lano sat down near me and faced the field. The cut rows caught the light differently as it moved - some rows still yellow, some gone grey. The cut grass held the warm smell of it still, green and dry both. The sheet lay in it with its date and its name. The keeper reached the hedge end and turned back. His fork lifted and laid, lifted and laid. The work went on toward the hedge and not for the party, and not for us.

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