Dream d3622-s: The Coil Left Ready

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the lamp at the near post threw a long wedge of light across the coping stones, and I was standing at the water's edge when the first figure gathered a canvas sack from the quay.

There were no formal words for it. The coil of sound rope had already been laid down on the flat stone - loops nested clean, the bitter end tucked under the outer wrap so it would not catch a foot in the dark. The laying down of the coil was itself the message: here is what remains, here is what you will need.

The bridge planks sounded their hollow knock as the footsteps crossed. Then the sound diminished to nothing, and the crossing held only its own noise - the slap of water under the dock boards, the low protest of fenders between hull and stone.

The quay worker crossed to the bow line of the waiting boat and began the cleat hitch with the same calm a person brings to a thing done a thousand times. Figure-eight, then the half-hitch that holds against night swell. The hull shifted once as the tide made its small argument, then settled.

I watched the hands work their way aft - midship ring, then stern - each line dressed and pressed with the heel of the palm to confirm it held. The work had no need for me to watch it. I watched it anyway, the way one watches a thing that is going exactly as it should.

The lamp made its cone. The doubled lantern on the far bank kept its shape in the water below.

When the quay worker straightened after the last line - hands at rest, weight back on both feet, the boat squared up in its berth - there was a pause that was not hesitation. A standing still that was assessment. Then a single step back from the edge, and the night went on.

The coil of sound rope lay where it had been left, ready for whoever came next.

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