Dream d3695-s: Chalk Against Cord

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the lights in the receiving place were already burning when I came down the road, though no one had expected me at a particular hour. A worker I did not know sat near the entrance with a mending frame across her knees, her needle drawing thread in a slow arc over the stretched fabric. She did not look up when I stepped through.

My travelling bag was heavier than I remembered. I set it near the wall and stood for a moment taking in the room. The shelves had been reorganized since my last visit - heavier materials on the lower racks now, easier to lift without stretching. Someone had thought it through.

A second worker stood at the far window marking lengths of cord with a chalk stub. He worked without urgency, pulling the chalk in one long stroke and then another, spacing the marks by eye. Each pass made a dry, clean sound that crossed the quiet room. I listened to it while I unbuckled the bag.

The notebook stayed in my coat. The eight dated sheets were where I had left them on the near end of the table, undisturbed. The receiving place tends to leave things where it finds them.

I pulled a chair from under the table and sat. The worker with the mending frame glanced up briefly, then bent again to her work. The cord worker tied off the last length with a half-hitch and laid it across the growing row. Neither of them asked what had brought me back.

Outside I could hear water, the low continuous sound of a channel moving under a footbridge somewhere I could not see. The lamp on the table threw a circle of yellow light that reached as far as the second shelf and stopped. The rest of the room was not dark, only lower.

I had not planned to stay past the first night. Sitting there in the lamp circle, listening to the chalk and the needle and the distant water, I understood that nothing had been finished without me, and nothing had waited.

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