Dream d3666-s: The Sorting Hour

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood in the upper passage and watched a worker pull lengths of cord from a worn canvas bag propped near the open doorway.

The bag had been there before I arrived; that was clear from the way the cord had settled into loose coils, the top layer faded by the light from the opening. She drew each length out by feel, running her thumb along the fibers before setting it against the others on the floorboards. The daylight coming through was soft and level, the kind that spreads without hard edges. Ochre on the plaster wall beside the frame, slate on the boards underfoot.

She sorted the cord into two piles by some distinction I could not read from where I stood.

A second worker came through from the far room and crouched beside the bag without speaking. He lifted one coil from the right pile, held it in both hands for a moment, then set it back and chose another. She did not comment on the choice. They worked through several exchanges like this, each movement small and deliberate, neither of them hurrying.

There was a scrape of something against the floor in the far room. Another hand at work, or the same task continued at a distance. The sound did not quicken either of the two in front of me.

At some point she lifted the bag itself, not to empty it but to feel the remaining weight, then set it back against the doorframe and straightened. The cords already sorted sat on the floorboards in their two piles. The bag was not empty. The bag was also not particularly full.

I stayed at the edge of the upper passage while the light shifted slightly and the worker with the cord began separating the left pile into thirds. The second worker moved to help, or only to watch; I could not tell which. No one announced what the sorting would become. The bag rested against the frame and they continued.

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