Dream d3590-s: Kindling Left in Reach

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the alder trees stood thick on both sides of the bridge, their leaves yellow at the edges, still holding. The water beneath moved without sound, or nearly without sound, a low steady pull over rounded gravel. I stood on the bank where the grass was short and watched.

A figure came along the path from the eastern side, carrying a bundle of dry kindling across one arm. The sticks were small and pale, stripped of bark, bound with a length of cord. The bundle was not heavy by the look of it, but the figure carried it carefully, the way a person carries something breakable rather than something merely light.

At the center of the bridge another figure stood. This one had been there before I arrived, both hands resting on the railing, facing the water. They did not turn until the first figure was close. When they did turn, there was no greeting I could hear. They only looked at each other, then at the bundle.

The one carrying set it down on the planks of the bridge, not into the other's arms but in the space between them, within easy reach. They straightened and stepped back by half a pace. The bridge tender looked at the bundle on the boards for a moment, then crouched and lifted it with both hands. The cord held. The sticks did not scatter.

Nothing was said that I could hear. The one who had carried the bundle nodded once and turned back toward the path they had come from. The one who received it stood a moment longer at the center of the bridge, the kindling resting against their side, and watched the other go. Then they walked on in the opposite direction, toward the far bank, without hurrying.

The alder leaves moved in the little wind that came off the water. I stayed on the bank until both figures had gone from sight. The bridge was empty. The light was the kind that comes just before the sky loses its color altogether, still pale, the shadows not yet grey.

I woke before the creek went quiet. For a moment its low pull seemed to run beneath the room, and I listened until it became the ordinary silence before morning.

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