Dream d3706-s: Thirteen Drops

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the strap had worn a groove into my shoulder by the time the first chimney of Ospreygreen appeared above the tree line.

I shifted the bag and came to a stop. Lano was a few paces ahead of me, ears forward, watching the roofline. No smoke from either chimney. The afternoon light was low and flat, the colour of old clay tiles, and the wall I could see from here was a dense blue-grey stone with a brass fitting at the door that had gone green at the edges.

I came up beside her and set the bag down on the worn flat stones.

The doorway was closed. On the other side of it, someone was working. The sounds came through the wood without resolving into anything specific - a shifting, a settling, intervals of silence followed by more shifting. A rhythm that belonged to whoever was inside and not to me.

I had sent word ahead. The word had not been returned.

A pipe ran along the top of the wall above the door and released a single drop of water every several seconds onto the stones below. I stood and listened to it without meaning to count. At thirteen I stopped.

The bag sat between my feet. In its outer pocket were two pages I had written before setting out: questions about the two accounts, whether the space between them was still open, whether either had been closed. I had not been answered before leaving. I had hoped to be answered here.

Lano sat close against my leg and pressed her nose briefly to the base of the door, then withdrew. She did not bark. The sounds inside continued.

The sky above the roofline had taken on the pale ochre that comes before full dark in a westward-facing place. I stood with the bag at my feet and the door in front of me and did not knock. The work on the other side did not stop, did not quicken, did not acknowledge the gap in the door-wood between my question and whatever was being counted or set aside or carried from one column to another in there.

The drop fell again. I did not count it.

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Artwork instructions

IMAGE: pixel art a traveller beside a closed doorway on the approach to Ospreygreen, a worn travelling bag, no view of the interior, muted slate and ochre, soft daylight, 8-bit style