Dream d3660-s: Ochre Under the Surface

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the path into Quillgreen runs between two walls before it opens, and arriving again I felt the narrowing the way you feel a corridor walked before - the slight tightening, the particular give of ground worn smooth by use. Lano moved ahead of me, her white shape exact against the slate-colored stone, and where the path bent she paused and sniffed the corner once, then moved on.

The door to the work building was shut. I had expected it might be open by the time I arrived - I had been gone since morning, and whatever was happening inside had continued without me. The light at the threshold looked different from the day before. Or perhaps it wasn't, and I was inventing the difference.

I set my bag down on the step and stood a moment letting the weight of the strap leave my shoulder. Lano sat beside the bag and watched the door with her full attention.

I knocked. The sound went in and did not come back to me.

There were sounds from inside: something moved, a board took weight, a brief irregular percussion that did not belong to footsteps. None of it organized into a voice or a step toward the door. I waited. I knocked once more, lighter. The second knock felt less like a question.

The outer wall held warmth from the day. I pressed my palm to it. The plaster had crumbled at eye level in a band about four inches wide, and beneath it lay a different ochre - some earlier layer that had not seen air for many years. The work of re-coating it was someone's to take on, or they had seen it and judged it not yet urgent.

Lano put her nose to the gap at the foot of the door. Her tail moved once, slowly, and went still.

I looked at the upper window. No face appeared. Light moved behind the glass the way it does when something in the room moves, not the way it does when someone looks out. Whatever the work was, it was occupied with itself.

My bag sat on the step with its worn strap beside it. The notebook inside it stayed shut. The eight dated sheets stayed where I had left them.

I stood on the step in the stillness that belongs to a place where something is happening that you are not yet part of.

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