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The first thing he carved was a spoon, which he considered an error. Not because it failed as a spoon — on the contrary, it cupped precisely the right amount of soup, or salt — but because it introduced him to the habit of carving, a habit that took root and grew underground before he knew how to stop it.

The spoon led to a small box, which led to a bookshelf that would fit inside a doorway, which led to a series of increasingly implausible objects: a macrocarpa bird with the mark of the saw still faintly visible on its wings, a kauri book impossible to open, an improbably tall post turned from soft kahikatea, an apricot vase cracked from foot to rim.

—

He was middle-aged, which is to say he had the sort of calm one acquires from certain disappointments and the sort of panic one ignores because it seems indecorous to acknowledge it. He lived alone, read newspapers a day late, and had learned to cook one dish very well rather than many dishes badly. His name was Hale. The first time I met him — more than fifteen years ago — he arrived at my house to buy a used desk I had foolishly advertised at a price that brought out all sorts of men with tape measures. He came with a tape measure and left with the desk and a promise to send me something in exchange, which I did not take seriously.

…

Continues in a forthcoming collection (late 2025)