Dream d3687-s: The Shoulder Less Raised

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I walked beside a returning worker down the lower lane in Quillhush, the one that skirts the dyer's yard. Her bag sat high on one shoulder and shifted when she turned the corner, and I watched her catch it without looking down and settle the strap. Her hands had done that adjustment many times. The motion was already completing itself before I could watch it start.

The lane was quiet. A rectangle of light fell from an open door two houses along and someone moved through it, not stopping. The gate at the yard fence grated once in its track and went still.

She had been gone five nights. Her bag was lighter coming back than it had been going out, and the difference showed in how she carried it, the shoulder less raised, the forward tilt smaller. I kept my notebook inside my coat. I did not take it out.

We came to the wider part of the lane where the ground still held the softness from Tuesday's rain. Her boot left a clean impression in the center of the path. She paused over it, briefly, then walked on.

At her building she set the bag against the wall beside the door and rolled her shoulder twice. Then she stood with her back to the doorway and looked at the way we had come: the lane, the yard, the fence line, the lamp at the far corner burning steady. I stood beside her and looked at the same things.

A cat crossed the yard at the far end and sat by the fence post. It watched us for a moment, then pushed through a gap in the boards and was gone.

The light from inside fell across the flagstone and across the worn strap of her bag. After a while she bent, lifted it, and went through the door. I followed.

Neither of us said what the other had already worked out.

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