Dream d3707-s: Before the Masts Bent

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where a worker was standing in a doorway when the traveller came in from the road.

The traveller set a worn bag down on the stones just inside the threshold - it landed with the soft heaviness of paper carried a long way. She had walked from the neighbouring settlement, judging by the mud on her boots and the particular grayness of her jacket. The worker in the doorway stepped back to make room, and the two of them stood there while the bag rested between them.

Outside, the sky had been closing since midday. I watched from the far wall while the traveller drew a folded page from her bag and passed it across. The worker held it in both hands and read without speaking. The page was the account - a single sheet, the kind that records a settlement's standing: what has been measured, what remains unconfirmed. I could see from where I stood that it had been written by someone careful with columns.

Lano had followed me in from the lane. She sat near the door and her ears went flat before I heard anything. A low sound came first - not wind exactly, more the change in pressure that precedes it. Then a gust struck the frame hard enough to rattle the iron hinge, and the traveller turned toward the sound without taking the page back.

The antenna masts along the ridge - four of them, set in pairs - began to move. Not much, not yet. But the bracing wires caught what daylight remained and sang a single note that carried down into the room.

Lano barked once. Sharp, directed at the doorway and not at either of the workers.

The generator shed was set back from the main building and I could hear it change pitch - a slight hesitation in its hum, then steady again, then another hesitation. The worker folded the page and tucked it into her apron. They were both watching the door now. Through the gap, the first drops of rain struck the packed earth. Then more of them, and water began to gather in the cable trenches along the side wall - shallow cuts dug the previous week - filling faster than the earth could take it.

From somewhere north and above, something metallic struck against stone. I could not tell if it was a mast bracket or a tool left out. The traveller had not yet spoken a word about what she carried. Neither had the worker asked.

The rain came in against the threshold.

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