Dream d3684-s: Before the Cloth Is Spread

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I heard a drawer close before I saw anyone - a single wooden knock from inside the building, then quiet.

She was at a low bench near the doorway when I came around the corner of the passage, the worn travelling bag propped against the wall behind her. Its buckles had gone dull, the leather scuffed in the particular way leather gets after many crossings over stone floors. From it she had unpacked part of what it held: a folded cloth, two wrapped lengths of cord, a flat tin with a hinged lid. These sat in a loose arrangement on the bench, not yet placed anywhere permanent.

She lifted the tin and tilted it slightly, as if checking the weight. Nothing in the tilt revealed much. She set it back.

The light came in low and flat through the doorway behind her, afternoon leaning toward evening. Whatever the cloth had been brought for was not here yet, or had not been reached. The worker did not hurry over this. She took one length of cord and held it at arm's length, letting it uncoil partway, and checked it for something I could not name from where I stood - a fray, perhaps, or a set point only visible under tension. Then she coiled it loosely and laid it atop the folded cloth. The second cord stayed in its wrapping.

I sat on the step at the threshold. The notebook was beside me, closed. The eight dated sheets I had placed against the wall on the second day remained there, undisturbed.

The tin was still full, or still empty - I did not know which. The cloth had not been spread. The worker was somewhere in the middle of a task whose shape I could not fully read, only its direction: forward, incremental, patient.

She turned and found me sitting on the step. I thought she might speak, but she only looked at the bag and then at the bench, as if confirming both were still where she expected.

Outside, a starling moved in short hops across the far end of the courtyard, pausing between each.

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