Dream d3541-s: Both at the Coping

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the smell of cold iron reached me before I heard footsteps on the packed earth. I was at the well - the stones of the coping worn smooth where hands had rested for years, a low continuous polish that told its own history - and the rope sleeve lay loose in my grip, not yet lowered.

The well keeper was still there. She had not finished. Her bucket sat on the coping lip, half-full, the surface trembling slightly from the draw she had just made. She looked at me without moving, not blocking, not welcoming - only present in the way a person is when they have arrived first and are not yet done.

I set my own bucket down on the earth beside hers. There was room. The rope sleeve, a short length of braided fiber worn through at the middle, hung on the iron hook where it always hung. When I reached for it she did not step back. She shifted her weight to one side and I fitted my hands beside hers on the wooden frame.

The pulley turned. Neither of us spoke. The rope fed through the sleeve and the worn patch made a different sound against the iron hook than the fresh fiber did - a softer catch, then release. I lowered my bucket. She watched the water, not me. The morning light came from one direction only and lit the surface below as a small bright oval getting smaller.

When my bucket was full I drew it up. The weight pulled against my palms. She steadied the rope sleeve with one hand without being asked to, and the draw came up without the scrape that sometimes happened when no one held it. I poured into my own vessel. She poured into hers. The coping had room for both.

There was nothing to decide. No ownership changed. The rope sleeve stayed on the hook between us. When I stepped back she stepped forward again and lowered her own line a second time, and I waited without leaving, because the fork was still cold in the early air and there was nowhere yet that required me.

The two buckets sat together on the earth until hers was full. Then she lifted hers, and I lifted mine, and we each went the way we had come from.

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Artwork instructions

IMAGE PROMPT: pixel art a human figure at the public well at the road fork, a worn rope sleeve, The next person arrives with the ordinary tools of the place; neither asks to take charge., muted slate and ochre, soft daylight, 8-bit style