Dream d3610-s: The Copper Under Grey

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the sound of boots on wet stone came first - that particular rhythm, heel then toe on the path that curves away from the shelter's open side. I stood still and let it happen.

The shelter was low-ceilinged, built into the slope, and the person leaving had to duck under the beam. He straightened on the far side without looking back. A pack on one shoulder, a walking staff loose in the grip. The light was the grey-green of late afternoon after a long overcast, and it made his coat look darker than it was until he reached the open ridge and the pale sky spread behind him.

What he left was practical: a folded wool blanket on the bench nearest the entrance, a clay cup with water still in it, a wedge of bread wrapped in cloth. The arrangement had the look of things set down with intention, not abandoned.

I folded the blanket again along its existing creases, not to improve it, only because my hands wanted work to do. It was heavier than it looked, dense and slightly damp at one corner. I laid it back.

The traveller in the corner had been watching. Young, narrow in the shoulders, with the stillness of someone who has learned not to ask when they are cold. I brought the blanket to them and they took it without speaking, pulled it around themselves, and turned back to face the shelter wall. I could see the slight easing in the line of their back as the wool settled.

The departing figure was well down the ridge by then. A small shape against the distance, moving at the pace of someone who knew where they were going and had no reason to hurry. I watched until he passed the bent tree that marks the lower turn, and then he was gone from sight.

The cup was still on the bench. The bread beside it. Outside, the overcast was beginning to break near the horizon - that thin line of copper light that sometimes appears under all that grey, just before full dark.

The traveller had stopped shivering.

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