Dream d3642-s: Hollow at the Centre

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I reached Ospreygreen late in the afternoon, the travelling bag cutting a familiar pressure across my shoulder. The outer wall was the same slate and ochre I remembered - the ochre brushed upward in strokes that caught the low light differently depending on where I stood, wider in places than I had expected, the colour almost warm where it faced south.

The door was closed.

I set the bag down on the step. Two workers passed behind me carrying a roll of something wrapped in canvas, their pace even and unhurried, moving through the yard without stopping. They did not look my way. A third worker was somewhere past the far corner; I could hear the rhythmic pull of a handsaw, though I couldn't see the source.

I knocked.

The sound was flat against the heavy wood. I waited. The sawing continued in its regular interval, neither speeding nor slowing. I knocked again with the base of my fist and the sound was fuller but went no further.

Nothing moved behind the door. No footstep crossed toward it. The gap at the bottom showed no change in light.

I did not know what work was happening on the other side. I had not known when I set out and I did not know now. The door held that information cleanly, without effort.

I picked up the bag and set it down again on the step where there was more shadow. The stone was warm from the afternoon and the ochre wall where it faced the yard was warmer still when I pressed my palm flat against it. The texture was fine-grained, nearly smooth, with places where the plaster had been repaired in a slightly different mix - visible only if you were close enough and the light was right.

I sat down. The step was worn at its centre, a smooth hollow wide enough to have been made by many years of crossings. The original cut was still sharp at the edges where no foot had reached.

The sawing stopped. For a moment there was only the yard - a gate somewhere distant, the canvas roll being set down. Then the sawing started again from a different position.

My request had gone out. Whether it had arrived I could not say. The door remained shut and the interior remained its own, and the afternoon held all of it at the same even temperature, neither withholding nor offering.

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