Dream d3546-s: Palm Against the Grain

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the reeds stood close on either side of the path, their stalks pale in the low light, and the sound of water ran beneath the boards without rushing. I was behind the keeper, close enough to hear each footfall, and the path curved once before the plank appeared.

It was a single board, wide as a forearm, set between two runners where the ground had given. One end had sunk two fingers into the mud and the board had tilted with it, not broken, just settled in a way that changed the angle of every step. The keeper stopped before reaching it and stood for a moment without speaking.

Then she crouched and set her palm flat against the wood, beginning at the near end where the grain was still clean. I watched her hand move toward the sunken side, feeling for the give, pressing once and releasing, pressing again. The pressure was not a test of strength. It was a question asked slowly, the way you ask something you already know the answer to and want to hear anyway.

The reed beds gave off a faint mineral smell, the standing water below catching what remained of the light. Lano had come around to my side and sat in the path, ears upright, watching the keeper's hand the same way I was. She did not move toward the plank.

The keeper lifted one finger from the surface and set it back, tracing where the wood had softened from water rising through the grain. The edge where the change began was not dramatic. It was gradual, a place where one kind of material became another kind without announcing it. She stayed crouched and moved her hand back the other direction, confirming.

Nothing was said. The keeper rose, stood a moment with her weight evenly placed, and looked down the path ahead where the reeds continued. Whatever she had found, she held it as information, not indictment. The plank had changed; the hand had learned it.

I remained where I was. The small white dog pressed briefly against my leg, then settled again. The eight dated sheets were in my pack and the notebook was shut and I did not open either. I was only here to see what the hand saw, to follow the line of that attention from the keeper's palm to the place in the wood where the water had been working longer than any of us had stood on this path.

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