Dream d3623-s: Linen Bound With Pale Cord

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the gate at the clinic was low, and I stopped at the threshold with my shoulder nearly touching the crossbar.

Through the gap, I could see a shelf along the far wall - narrow boards set at waist height, most of them occupied with things wrapped and stacked with the care of use rather than display. The middle board was bare. The light fell across its grain at an angle that made the absence hard to miss, the way a pulled tooth leaves a space the tongue keeps finding.

I didn't go inside. I stood where I was and looked. The shelf had been organized with attention; the bare board stood out not because it was empty but because everything around it was not. Someone had left a gap, or a gap had opened, and no one had yet moved to close it.

Then I heard it: the flat knock of pressed cloth against a forearm. That sound is specific, and I knew it before I placed it, before I turned. I had already seen what was needed; the sound arrived as confirmation, not discovery.

The figure came along the outside wall, carrying a packet bound with pale cord. Clean linen, folded flat, edges tucked in the way that takes a moment to do properly. The figure moved without hurry, and I stepped back from the gate before they reached it - not directing, just making the opening clear.

The packet was brought to the base of the shelf inside, set where it could be reached and placed without ceremony. No word was spoken. The figure who carried it didn't stay to see the linen lifted to the bare board. I watched from where I stood, still outside the gate, as the cord rested against the wood and the empty shelf above it held its quiet.

The gap I had seen before anyone moved to close it was already answered. I had only been standing still at the right moment, at the right angle, when the bare board showed itself in the changed afternoon light.

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