Dream d3591-s: Tinder at the Dark Crossing

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the alders were dark overhead and the bridge planks held the cold of the water running below them.

A figure crouched at the near end of the bridge where someone had built a low stone ring to keep a watch fire through the damp nights. The bundle of dry kindling sat in the figure's hands - small, tight, tied with a strip of bark - and the figure held it a moment the way a person holds something before use, neither inspecting it nor delaying, just present with it.

The damp logs were already stacked. I could see the white rings of their cut ends in the low light, the bark beaded with the river's breath. The figure separated the bundle without haste, feeding the smallest sticks first into the space beneath the wood. Birch curls, a few fingers of dry alder no thicker than a thumb, the kind that catches before you have time to think it won't.

I was on the far side of the bridge. I had not been asked to come closer. I watched the way you watch work being done well: without needing to help.

The figure had a box of matches, the old kind with a rough strip on the side, and the first match caught and was cupped in both hands before the river air could pull the flame away. The kindling took. Not all at once. There was a moment where it seemed to waver and consider, and then it decided, and the small orange crept into the dry sticks and found the underside of the larger wood.

The figure sat back on one heel and watched.

Smoke moved up through the alder branches and dispersed before it reached the crown. The river murmured below the planks. Somewhere to my left a nightjar made its churring call once and went quiet, as if it had only been checking.

The fire was not large. It was the right size. It would hold through the watch and leave the crossing visible from the road. The figure added two more sticks from the bundle's remainder, placed them at an angle to draw air, then held still.

I crossed the bridge. The planks were damp but solid. At the midpoint the fire's warmth reached me, surprising - it was small, but the air above the water was so cold that even this edge of heat meant something.

The figure did not look up. The work was in the fire now. I passed to the other side and the alder branches closed over the bridge behind me, and the glow stayed steady at the center of the crossing as I walked on.

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