Dream d3722-s: Six Days Without Reply

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the strap had worn through at one point and I'd doubled it over and tied it, and that knot caught my thumb every few steps on the final stretch. That was the whole rhythm of the approach - the catch, the release, the catch again.

The wall of Quillgreen appeared before the gate did. Pale ochre between gaps in the treeline, and then the gate itself, and then the door beside it, shut. A lamp bracket overhead, but no lamp. The afternoon was grey and agreeable, the kind that makes distances feel honest.

I set the bag down. My shoulder registered the absence of it in a slow way, an unburdening that took several breaths to complete. The knotted strap rested against the cobblestones. I straightened and looked at the door.

No sound from inside. I had sent word ahead - six days before, through a carrier at the waystation - asking whether there was room at the account house and whether the current index would be finished before my arrival. Neither question had come back answered.

I pressed the heel of my hand against the door's surface. The wood had been painted at some point, grey or blue, and the paint had gone matte with years of handling. Still warm, despite the overcast.

Two workers passed on the lane behind me, pipe lengths balanced across their shoulders. They didn't look over. Their conversation was about a joining that hadn't seated properly, a specific tool they needed that was currently at the other end of the district. They moved past and their voices receded.

I waited. The door stayed shut. Whatever work was underway inside went on without knowing I was here - or knowing and not yet ready, which amounted to the same thing from where I stood.

I picked up the bag again. The knot caught my thumb. I shifted the strap to the other shoulder and found a flat section of wall to lean against, close enough to hear if the latch lifted, not so close as to be pressing on the frame.

A sparrow landed on the wall above me, regarded me for a moment, and flew.

I waited.

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