Dream d3672-s: The Buckle and the Hour

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the light came through the doorway at a low angle and the worker standing in it cast a long shadow across the stone floor behind her. She had set the travelling bag on the lip of the wall and opened it without ceremony, pulling out a short-handled tool with a worn grip, the kind used for tightening the iron fittings on window casements.

She worked the first fitting without checking any document. Her hands knew the torque and she moved to the second, then the third, stepping sideways along the wall while I stood in the courtyard and watched. The bag stayed propped where she had left it, its top flap folded back to show the shape of a second tool nested inside, unused so far.

Between fittings she paused and held the tool upright a moment, not resting, just orienting herself to the next. I noticed the bag's leather had been mended at one corner with a length of cord in a different colour. The mend was old enough to have gone stiff. The new stitching was not yet old.

When she finished the row she set the tool back in the bag and folded the flap. She did not look at me. She lifted the bag by its shoulder strap and moved to the next window along the wall, and I followed at a distance, neither helping nor impeding, just present to the sequence of it. The fittings on the second window were tighter from the start and she worked slowly, her elbow at a careful angle.

There was no conversation. Nothing came to ask. The notebook was shut in my coat where I had placed it the morning before, and the sheets were still folded where I had left them. The worker finished the second row as the bell rang once from somewhere further in the settlement. She straightened and looked at the bag, then out at the yard, then went on.

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