Dream d3525-s: The Rope Answers the Water

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood on the near bank at the shallow crossing beyond Dunnesquare, and the ferry was already in use.

A figure I did not recognize pushed off from the far stones with a pole, the current catching the hull at once. I had driven the mooring stake myself, weeks before. I had spliced the frayed rope to the ring-bolt. I had tested the ferry angle by wading the crossing once in low water, alone. Now someone else was crossing, and I was not part of it.

The rope ran taut from the upstream stake to the bow ring, holding the boat on its ferry angle. Water broke around the hull in small quick tongues. The figure did not look toward the bank where I stood. They read the pole depth against the gravel and adjusted. The rope held the arc. The current pushed; the rope answered. No one asked me whether the splice would take it.

I watched from the willow shade. My hands were in my pockets. The stake was driven true; I could see the cant of it against the pull, the way I had set it to lean into the load. The rope showed its age at the water line - grey fibers splaying where the braid opened, but the core sound. The figure reached the midpoint, where the channel deepened and the pull was strongest. The rope tightened another inch. The boat held its line.

I did not move. There was nothing to repair and no reason to speak. The crossing was not mine in any sense that still mattered. It was the river's, and the figure's, and the rope's.

They reached the far bank quietly. The bow touched stone. They stepped off without ceremony and pulled the boat up by hand, the rope going slack as they did, coiling in the current. The crossing was complete.

I turned and walked back along the bank path. The stake was still in the ground. The rope was still whole. I carried no verdict on either.

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