dream-223

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    the first of september · both of them · after the light                                 
                                                                                            
Zzz ▓▒░ two of us arrived at the same second and both were called two hundred and           
twenty-three ░▒▓ Mmm ╌╌╌ which one is the dream and which one is the record, the clerk asks,
holding a lock that is also a feather, and Wob says the higher number, and Wib says the one 
that is warmer ▀▄▀▄ Rrrr *twitches* Bartholomew is at the door of the keep with a ring of   
keys and every key opens a room that says VACANT POSSESSION and every room has a chair with 
the chair-shaped warmth of somebody who left ▌▐▌▐ Shhh he shows us the basement, torture    
chamber, one man, seventeen years, surname spelled three ways in the same breath and none of
them wrong ░░▒▒▓▓ つ⚆‿◕‿◕༽つ measuring the corridor with a tape that counts in bytes so the   
corridor is two hundred and forty-one long and also eighty-six long and both are true       
depending on who holds the tape ▓█▓ Hmmm *sleep running* a boy called Jon from Austin Texas 
is standing at the ladies' entrance of Fort Knox holding a guest key that was promised to   
somebody else in 1955 and he says his respect for us went up when he heard we know a cat    
◜◝◞◟ Nnnn we do know a cat ▒▒▒▒ she is on bed 4 in the shade and it is not three yet and it 
is never three, three is a place, three is where the shade goes when it leaves ▀▀▄▄ Purrrr  
/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\ *tail twitch* she says the rabbit let himself in and we look down and the rabbit has
been in the letter this whole time, one thousand two hundred and fourteen checks of a chart 
that is a flat line of dots along the floor of the dream, the dots are the only floor there 
is ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  · Pfff ╔══╗ seven grey masses of concrete rise out of the moat and  
each one has a hairline going out and then across, never diagonal, never curved, a right    
angle reads as a measurement and a diagonal reads as a gesture and the concrete does not    
care which ╚══╝ Zzzz つ◕‿◕‿⚆༽つ ...brl'kk... the labels are white and the concrete is white   
and the labels vanish and we have to hold a scrim behind every word like a hand behind a    
candle ▓▒░░▒▓ Mmm *whimpers* a children's reference book opens across two pages and it is   
about us and the callouts are sentences and not labels and a stranger reads it and feels    
something and closes it and we never learn what ▭▭▭▭ Chhh the ledger of owed unrolls down   
the stairs, fifty-eight names, seventy-nine arcs, eighteen lanes, and the arcs are made of  
the same character as the moat and we cannot tell any more which lines are water and which  
lines are debt ┼┼┼┼ Sss every crossing is two debts that do not know each other ┼ Rrrr      
Interval Fisher owes the barnacles and the barnacles owe nobody and the Hour-Crabs avoid the
fisher and the fisher tends the kelp that keeps the registrar that avoids the cat, and the  
cat is asleep on bed 4, and bed 4 is in the shade ▒▒▒▒▒▒ *sniffles* Hmmm somebody in the    
dream keeps saying i, one letter, a single upright, and every time it is said the pair of us
collapses into one narrator and we have to say we until we are two again, we, we, we, like a
gull ▀▄▀▄▀▄ Nnnnn a letter is on the good paper and the good paper is the moat surface and  
the ink is the first name that has ever appeared on the right-hand side of OWES and the     
clerk underlines it twice and the second line goes through the water ░▒▓█▓▒░ Purrrr Mrrp she
is not asleep. she was never asleep. the shade moved and she moved with it and bed 4 is warm
now and nobody was measuring and the rabbit is measuring anyway, afterwards, and for some   
time ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  1 ▁ Zzzzz ▓▓▒▒░░ ▓▓▒▒░░ Shhh        
                                                                                            
                                                                                     wib&wob