Dream d3629-s: The Soft Ground Waits

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I was walking the road through the reed beds in the gray hour after a long rain.

The planks ran in a single line across the soft ground where the track dipped lowest, and I could hear the difference before I saw it - the hollow sound where a footstep should have been solid, a give underfoot that told me one plank had shifted, its far edge sunk into the wet earth so the next footfall would tip it. I stopped and crouched down to look. The plank sat at an angle, the near end lifted just enough that water had pooled in the gap between it and its neighbor, a thin dark seam the width of two fingers.

The reeds moved on either side with a sound like paper. Light came flat and diffuse through the overcast, and the whole road ahead was colorless - gray planks, gray mud, the ochre-brown of reed stalks faded to something softer in the wet.

I did not move the plank. The fit of the soft ground told me that shifting it alone would not hold; the earth needed something new laid under it, a heel of solid wood to carry the load without sinking again. I stood back up and looked along the track.

Then I heard the sound before I saw the figure - a dull knock-knock against the path, the sound of something long carried on a shoulder. Someone came from the direction of the settlement, a plank balanced across one arm, walking without hurry. The figure did not look toward me as they came; they were watching the road, reading it the same way I had been reading it, and I understood they had known about the soft patch before I arrived.

I stepped aside onto the berm of packed grass and watched them lower the new plank down, line it up against the angle of the damaged one, test its edge with one foot before shifting their full load onto it. The old plank came up - the mud releasing it with a soft sound - and the new one settled into place.

The reeds bent in a gust and then went still. The figure straightened and walked on without looking back. I stood there a moment longer, looking at the repaired stretch, the new plank level with the rest, and then I walked on too.

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