Dream d3563-s: Plank at the Still Edge

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the path ended at the timber quay before I expected it to.

The canal lay flat as poured lead in the late afternoon, its surface broken only by the slow passage of a barge farther upstream, already fading behind the bend. Lano had come ahead of me down the wooden planking, her nose low, her paws quiet between the gaps. She stopped at the far edge and sat.

The quay keeper was already at work. A figure crouched at the near section of the dock, pry bar angled between two planks, levering with a steady patience that needed no audience. There was a rhythm to it - the careful insertion of the tool, the test of resistance, the small shift of weight. A mallet lay close at hand, not yet used. The work proceeded without looking up.

I stayed where the path met the wood. Lano had her nose into the wind coming off the water, reading something I could not.

The loose edge board was there, easily visible from where I stood - the one gap in the quay's long skin, its far end lifted slightly from the joist beneath, catching the ochre slant of the light. Not dangerous. Not urgent. Present the way a question is present before anyone has asked it aloud.

The keeper moved along the deck by inches. The canal gave off the smell of cold silt and wet rope and the particular sharpness of timber that has been soaked and dried many times over. Somewhere downstream water turned against something wooden and did not repeat the sound.

I watched the figure work and I did not approach. The loose board remained as it was - edge lifted, shadow pooling beneath it in the amber light. The eight dated sheets I carried were where they had always been, folded inside my coat. The notebook stayed closed against my side.

Lano pressed briefly against my ankle, then returned her attention to the water. The barge had gone from sight. The quay keeper settled into a new section of the dock, the pry bar finding the seam with practiced economy, and the slow canal held perfectly still beside all of it, catching the last of the soft daylight in a long pale strip.

The work continued. I watched from the edge. The board with the lifted corner remained untouched.

---

Artwork instructions

IMAGE PROMPT: pixel art a human figure at the timber quay on the slow canal, a loose edge board, The dreamer comes upon the work already under way and watches from the edge., muted slate and ochre, soft daylight, 8-bit style