Chapter 2, The Swallowed Man

He was not got in the usual way, my son. Before I tell you how it happened, let me prepare the ground just a little better: Have you ever had a doll that seemed to live? A toy soldier that appeared to have a will of its own? It is not so uncommon. So then, as you read, if you place that old doll or soldier beside you, perhaps that should help.

So to it:

I carved him. He came to me out of wood. Just an ordinary piece of wood.

I am a carpenter, to be clear. I had long desired to make a puppet, just such a puppet, so that I might tour all the world with him, or earn some little local money, or at least—I should say at most—to have at home a body, some company, besides my own. I had known bodies in my past; I was not always so singular. Yet I never did make a family of my own. Despite everything, despite my pride in my woodwork, despite the solid walls of my fine room, I confess I found my days limited in company. I wanted another life again, to make—as only a carpenter of my skill might make—the sacred human form in wood, for companionship, and to show off without question my very great worth.

I went about it in a creator’s haze, in one of those moments when you are close to the divine, as if something of me and yet something altogether greater were connected to my feeble form as I worked. It was sacred magic.

Before long, I realized that something strange had happened.

The first glint came just after I carved the eyes. Those eyes! How they stared at me, directly, with intent. Perhaps I should have stopped there. Yes, I have been known to imagine things—like any other person—but this was different. The wooden eyes held their stare, and when I moved, they moved with me. I tried not to look. Are you, dear reader, an artist, even of the Sunday variety? Have you ever had those moments when, without quite knowing how, your art comes through with more grace, more life in it, than you had supposed possible? Have you wondered what guided your hand as you created this strange, wonderful thing? And have you attempted to repeat it, only to discover that it never happens quite the same way again?

I told you of this puppet’s eyes: Staring eyes, unnerving eyes. But they were my work, after all, so I steeled myself and carved on. Next: A nose. And again, as I carved it, the nose seemed to sniff, to come living before me. To grow, you see, long. Longer than I should have chosen, but the wood, do you see, gave me no choice. It was as if the wood commanded me, not I it.

And then beneath, in a fever, I made the mouth. And this—oh, you must believe—this was the point of certainty! For the mouth made noise.

It laughed. It laughed . . . at me.

Nearly a boy’s laugh, but not quite. A certain squeak to it.

This day was unlike any other.

I had never yet before made something living. But here it was! I went on, carving neck and shoulders, a little wooden belly. I could not stop. Arms! Hands for the arms! And the moment it had hands, this is the truth, they moved.

Have you ever seen a chair move on its own? Have you witnessed the promenade of a table, or seen knives and forks at dance with one another? A wheelbarrow wheel itself? Buttons leap to life? No, of course not. And yet we all know, we all have experienced, the disobedience of objects. And this object, mimicking as it did the rough shape of a body, presented itself to be a man! Right there and then. Before my eyes. It mocked humans; it mocked me.

Its first action, on finding movement: to pull the wig from my head.

I flinched; I shuddered. But it was too late to stop. I was in a passion of creation—I was under command of the wood—and so I carved on.

I gave him legs. Feet.

And the feet, on divining life, kicked with life. Kicked, that is, my shins.

This terrible thing!

You are an object! I cried. Behave like one!

And it kicked once more, for it was loath to follow the rules of objects. Rather, it threw down the book of rules and stamped upon it.

Oh God! I said to myself, for I was quite alone in my room. What have I done!

The thing moved.

I screamed in terror.

On finding it had legs, the thing had got up. It took to its feet, tested their balance, found them sturdy. And then it walked. To the door.

It opened the door. And then it left.

My sculpture, it ran. Away.

The thing was gone.

I screamed a moment and then I, too, ran. Terrified of losing it. For the thing was mine, it was my doing, I had made it.

Unlikely, you say? And yet it is all quite true. As true as I am a man imprisoned inside a fish. I am being honest. I am rational. I am in absolute calm as I write, as I beg you: Imagine having an earthen mug for a son! Imagine a teaspoon daughter! Twins that are footstools!

It—the wooden creature, I mean; I did think it an it to begin with, forgive me—it did not understand. It had no comprehension of the world, or of its dangers. A shortcoming I discovered on the very first night of its life.

It had a voice, indeed it did. The next morning, when I returned home, it spoke to me.

Here I must add: That first night of its life, I had been forced to sleep elsewhere.

I had been, that is, locked up. Because I lost my temper.

That first evening, after I had carved it and lost it, I rushed out after it. I looked and looked, wondering at how this stick-thing could have escaped me, at whether what I’d lost was my wooden boy or perhaps, was this the truth, my own mind.

Then at last, in the street, there it was. The sight of it was so strange, so out of place in, of all places, the town of Collodi, province of Lucca. Yet there it was! I wondered how to approach it and settled on the most cautious course: I sneaked up behind it. And then, once my hands were upon it—one round its midsection, one clamped over its gouge of a mouth—I picked it up and turned for home.

But it struggled, the dreadful object. And I struggled, anxious not to lose it again. The wooden thing bit me, and I pulled my hand away. It shrieked out in great complaint. And I bellowed. I . . . said words. I was upset, you see. I was angry. I own that. I surely mimicked my own father that evening, my own lost father whose shouts still trouble me.

And then people came running and interfering, yes indeed, until onlookers and neighbors became a crowd. And the crowd said I was a mean man, and what awful cruelties would await my poor, though peculiar, child once we were both at home behind closed doors. It was the anger of love and of fear. The fury of protection! And then a policeman added himself to the crowd and put his ears to the situation. He was not without sentiment. And so my son—not fully comprehended in the darkness—was set free and I was taken to gaol. The people, the policeman, they sided with it! With it! It before me!

I was locked up.

Not because I was a precious object, not to keep me safe, but because I was an unprecious object. To keep them safe. And so I spent the night confined. Disturbing the peace. As if my miracle were already polluting the morals of the world.

When I was set free that next morning from Collodi gaol—which has but two cells; we are generally a law-abiding folk—I rushed home. As soon as I reached my door, my rage flared up again. I suspected it would be home, I hoped it would be home. I meant to put it right, to make it known that I am a human and it but an object. The door to my home was locked. Indeed, locked by the creature inside.

I banged on the door. I banged on the window, in a fury by then. And looking in at the window I saw it: the carving, my carving! I tugged up the window and crawled in.

It spoke, its first word:

“Babbo!” That is how we say “father” in my part of the world.

Father!, it called me. The effrontery! Me, a real human. This object, this toy. It called me Babbo!

This little thing who refused to be a thing. Living dead thing. How it terrified.

And then I looked farther, down to its feet, and saw it: burnt stumps! It had set fire to itself. The flames were long extinguished, it sat in its own ash.

“You might have burned down the house,” I told it, observing its scorched limbs. “The whole street.”

“I was so cold!” it cried. “That gave me no warmth.” It pointed to the wall, and I understood: The year before, on a cold night, I had painted a mural there, of a hearth with a pleasant fire. It was no real fireplace, for in my poverty I lacked such a luxury, but I had pretended one in paint—well enough that it gave me an impression of warmth on many nights, it fooled me very pleasantly. But it had not warmed the wooden thing, and the thing had resorted to making its own fire, a real fire, right in the middle of the room.

“You might have killed people! Burned down all Collodi!” I yelled. And paused, then, in wonder: “How is it that you speak?”

“I talk! Yes, this is talking. I like it. The taste of words in my mouth.”

“Oh, terrible!” I said.

“But look at my feet! My feet are gone!”

“What a shame the flames climbed no higher,” I replied, for I admit I was most upset. “What a shame you are not all ash. What trouble you cause, ungodly object!” Was I cruel to the creature? Put yourself in my shoes. (I, who once had shoes.) Who would not be? I weep for it now.

“I have no feet,” it cried. “None at all. No feet!”

“Now where shall you run to?”

“Nowhere. I cannot!”

“It is your own fault. To play with fire! You are wood, you know! Remember that!”

“Daddy!”

“No! You are a thing, not a being,” I told it. “Lines must be drawn.”

“I am a boy,” it creaked.

“No!”

“I am!”

“You are a toy, a wooden plaything. You are for people to use as they please, and then to put down as they please. No opinions for you. No complaints.”

There was a silence then, a gap, until it screaked its question: “How, then, may I be a boy?”

“You may not. You must not consider it.”

“I tell you I shall be. I wish it!”

“See there, object, see that hook there? That is your hook. That is where you belong, alongside my tools and pieces. My mug. My pan.”

My shaking hands. I found a screw eye.

“What is that?” it asked.

“This is a metal loop with a screw end, you see.”

“What is it for?”

“It is most useful. If something has this attachment, then I can, for example, hang it from a hook. That hook there, for example. Turn around, please.”

“What are you doing?”

“It shan’t take but a moment.”

I held him again, placed the end of the loop between his narrow shoulders.

“Ow! It hurts!”

“Come now.”

“Ow!”

“A few more turns. There, then.”

“What have you done to me?”

“Now you shall learn your place.”

I heaved it up upon the hook and there it dangled. Kicking at the wall. Clack. Clack. Thump. Something like a hanged man.

“Let me down!”

“No, I shall not. Be silent.”

“What a thing to do to your own son!”

“You are no son but a puppet.”

“I am, Babbo. I am.”

“Little boys go to school, little boys sleep in beds, little boys go to church, little boys climb trees. And you, doll, were a tree. Learn your place.”

An hour later, having made certain the door was locked, I took it down. My hands were steadier then. I carved it new feet. I attached them with such care, with considerable expertise. You wouldn’t know the difference. I am, you see, a god parochial.

“If you kick me,” I said, “I shall keep you up there on your hook.”

“I shall not kick. I have learned my lesson.”

“Very good then.”

“May I go outside?”

“You may not.”

I lit my pipe. How it flinched at the flame upon my match. How shocked it was at the smoke coming from my pipe.

“Put it out! Put it out! We shall burn to death!”

“This fire, unlike yours,” I said, “is safely contained within the bowl of my pipe.”

I puffed.

“Look! Look at the weather!” it exclaimed.

I let free more smoke.

“What clouds! Do you make the clouds? Are you the one?”

How beautiful its observations! You see? Yet then, as I heard them, I failed to appreciate.

“It is but my tobacco burning.”

“I fear the flames.”

“Be calm. It is but a small personal bonfire.”

Later that day, I found it looking out the window, staring at the children rushing from the school.

“I wish to be a boy,” it said. “To run like them, in company.”

“We cannot have all that we wish.”

“Do but look at them, Daddy! Hallo there! Hallo!”

“Come away from the window!”

I closed the shutters. It was a mistake to let it look out. It encouraged the notions.

“You embarrass me,” I told it. “In front of all my neighbors, they who have proper children. Go find your hook.”

“Why must I?”

“Because I tell you.”

“And who are you to tell me?”

“The one who gave you life.”

“If you gave it, then I’ll take it. And I’ll run with it.”

“You’ll do as you’re told.”

“Little boys don’t sleep on hooks. Little boys have beds.”

“Must I make a cot then for every pot and pan?”

“No, surely just for me.”

The shutters shut up. We went about our lives, human and wooden. As I worked at my small carpentry, I let the thing play with odd little pieces I had in my possession. A list of his first friends:

Ball

Bent spoon

Rusted chisel

Hammer

Blunted hacksaw

After a time, it was dark again, and we were both quieter. I looked over at it. It had grown so still that I thought it had reverted to its former life as a mere object. I thought it had lost the trick of movement. For a moment I was almost touched by this change, as if I should feel sadness instead of relief. But after a moment it spoke again; it could not stay silent forever; silence was not in its nature. At first I did not understand the noise, convinced it was the singing of my floorboards as I walked upon them—my weight, you see, giving them voice, not the boards calling out themselves. But then, as I readied myself for bed, I stopped moving, and still the creaking continued. I listened closer.

“Where shall I sleep then?” it was wondering.

“Sleep? You sleep where I place you, right there on your hook. Sleep! What an idea after all! You do not sleep. That action is reserved for animals.”

Shriek. Such a shriek of wood. Words in the noise. “What am I then?”

“Branch,” I said. “Twig. Treebit.”

Such a crack.

Then, again, quieter: “What am I?”

And I thought: You are an impossible thing. Something gone wrong. A monster, I thought. O shame.

“Darling,” I said at last, “you are a piece of wood.”

I gave him a little bed, a towel for a blanket. I am glad to think of it now. I put them in a small wooden crate. It seemed happy with that, the odd thing. In time it closed its eyes. I watched it. I thought I saw its little chest upping and downing. Much easier to like, I thought, when it was silent and still. And I liked the sight so much that I picked up a pencil and drew it, while it was keeping still—as if it were an artist’s lay figure, that relative of a shop mannequin. A counterfeit human. But I drew it as if it were a real child sleeping. A very fine piece of carving, I told myself. My best work. The more I was alone with it, even as it kept still, the more like a little boy it seemed. It was only later, when you put its face next to a real human one, that it failed to convince. Alone with it, you could almost believe.

What a thing I had done! What a creation. What woodlife. Suddenly I felt deeply pleased with myself, with this thing. I felt accomplished. Foolish man.

“I did that,” I whispered.

Next day, I kept the door bolted again and the shutters closed. I was not ready to share it—whatever it was, exactly. How strange to find it still living when I woke. What a grand relief that was. It was playing with the small things I had lent it.

“I have been talking with the spoon,” it said, shattering the peace. “I have had words with the hammer. I have confessed to the chisel. Listen up, I know your hacksaw.”

“What are you saying?”

“They are hatching a plan, the things are.”

“Are they now?”

“Most certainly. They are planning a revolt. Did you know, your own pencil disapproves of you?”

“It does not. It is merely a pencil.”

“Yes! Yes! It has told me!”

“That is not true.”

“The pencil has told me so himself. His name is Ernesto. He is but a portion of his former self, the poor pencil. He used to be much taller, I gather. You have made him so short with all your sharpening, haven’t you? You have dwarfed poor Ernesto.”

“It is a lie. You are lying.”

“No, it’s true,” it said—and, as it spoke, something happened.

Upon the Good Book, an absolute truth, I promise it.

That nose—the nose of the thing, already prominent—it grew longer!

O disobedient wood! O unfamiliar life!

“True. True! TRUE!” the wooden bit continued, as if it had not noticed its nose’s appalling progress, even as it advanced. I watched that nose stretch and increase until I thought it might touch the wall. It grew so much it started to imbalance the creature, to tip him over, nosefirst. What an abhorrence. What a vile root. Such an unwelcomed growing. It quite panicked me.

I stared at it, at that thing that should have had no life yet lived, and I screamed in my terror.

And in reaction—for terror is, you know, most contagious—the thing found a terror of its own. It screamed back at me.

Scream!

“What’s happening?” it cried.

“I can hardly say it. . . . Your nose!”

“Stop it. Please stop it!”

“I scarce know how.”

“It feels bad.”

“The wood was dead,” I said. “I was certain of it. I cannot explain. To grow so many seasons in an instant!”

“Help! The strain of it!”

“It has stopped now, I think.”

“But it is so long!”

“I could trim it, perhaps.”

“Like Ernesto?”

“Thing,” I asked—tentatively, now, for I was growing a great fear of objects. “Is the pencil’s name truly Ernesto?’

“Yes. And the ball is called Elisabetta. She told me so.”

The nose grew again. A hasty advance, reptilian, something stretching itself. Not natural, not in nature. My dear fellow, I said to myself, you have come to life’s end this very day. This whole room might grow branches, I thought. In time I may be more pierced than Saint Sebastian.

And still it spoke on. That wooden thing, its life uncontained, sprouting forth excessively. It was an aberration, and yet—for I had been schooled in the Bible—it seemed something miraculous. No?

“The hammer is named Vittorio,” it went on. “The pan is Violetta.”

The nose, again. Progressing.

“Stop it! Stop it!” the mannequin cried.

“Is it true, my pine child? I wonder,” I said, as I was beginning to reason something out for myself. “Can it be? Is this growth connected to your untruths? Each time you fib, your proboscis extends. Let us test it, shall we? So then: Have the objects, my object, been talking to you?”

“They have—” said the nose, creaking with life, stretching into branches, “—not. I made it up. I have no friends here. I gave them voice myself. I lied.”

It stopped talking, and the nose stopped its journey.

“Ha! Ha!” I cried, for the truth had been discovered. Wonderful! “You must not lie, my little pine nut, for when you lie strange things happen. You keep lying like that, you’ll end up buried in a plant pot. Upside down, with your head and nose-root deep in the soil.”

“I must not lie,” it told itself in utter fright.

“Or bad things will happen.”

“I cannot move with such a snout! Make it go away, please, please, Daddy.”

“Poor thing, like an antler grown in a moment. A nose antler.”

“It hurts to have it. Please, Papa, what’s to be done? Could you shorten it, like you did to Ernesto? Like the pencil, I mean.”

“I may,” I said.

I picked up a small saw and hacked away at his nose. The thing screamed, but I felt I must go on, though there was something unholy about it. I cut away at it and the longness was reduced. How large the eyes as the blade went fast and slow. I sanded down the new cut. There was a little drop of pine sap at the end; I dried it away with my handkerchief, though the stain has remained upon the cloth ever since. I applied fresh varnish. There.

(My son’s nose, and the tail of a horseshoe crab found hereabouts. The resemblance being noted by me.)

“Now I am quite myself again,” it said. And proceeded to prance around the room, sending all the objects trembling. Then, as it stomped its feet upon the boards—like clogs they sounded—a plate of mine, made by my own father, all indeed that I had left of my father, came tumbling from its shelf and smashed upon the floor. And that was too far, that was all too much. With the switch in my hand—a portion of its former nose—I dragged the thing across my knee and thrashed the stick upon the whelp until there were marks upon his wooden back.

“That!” I said, pelting the object. “That for lying! That for breaking the plate!”

At last I was too tired to go any further and I must rest. I looked down at it. Pushed it from my lap. The sight of the thing. Oh, the poor boy.

“Now we must shake hands,” I said.

It looked uncertain.

“My father,” I explained, “always insisted upon the shaking of hands after a beating.”

“Your father did?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then I understand, Babbo.” And it took my hand. “A family tradition.”

The poor thing had been very traumatized by its nose, I could see that now. It wanted to be close by me then. I took its hand and found it was not unpleasant; the wood warmed quickly in my grasp, until soon it felt indeed like a small human hand. I was taken in by it for a little time, even wondered what it might be like to be fond of a wooden boy. I contemplated whether I might refer to it as him. I was waking up.

Yet then it pushed too hard.

Of a sudden, it sat up and looked about. It was thinking. “There is more to life than this room,” it said. “I think there must be. Don’t you think so, Daddy?”

“It is our home,” I said, struck.

“Small. Dim. Cold, too.”

“You cannot know what I have gone through to earn this room.”

“Unlock the door. I hear the schoolchildren! Tell me, Babbo, for you of all people must know: How can I be a real boy?”

“You cannot.”

“Come, I know I can. Teach me.”

“It is a thing impossible.”

“What is it children do? Tell me again.”

“They run free. They fall and hurt themselves. And get up again. They make noise.”

“Is that all?”

“I don’t know.” For I didn’t. I was unfamiliar, by fear and by choice. “They are rude, I think. They shout. They do not like me.”

“I believe that, poor Babbo. What else?”

“Fast—they are certainly fast. And filthy.”

“Ah, I like the sound of it. I’ll do it!”

“They come from woman.”

“Every one?”

“Every one.”

“Here is no woman.”

“No. That is true. And so you are not, nor cannot be, a boy.”

In the hours we had together, we played our game. At times, I allowed it. It liked that best of all.

“What is a human?” it asked.

“I am a human.”

“Teach me to be one.”

I could not convince it by words. I must show, I must demonstrate.

“If you’re to be a child, you must sit up.”

“There then.” And it did it, creaked into position.

“That is the least of it. You must also be good. Or else the stick.”

“Well, and what then?” it said.

“Say your prayers.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Very well—let me hear you.”

“Dear father, beloved Babbo, unhappy Daddy, please unlock the door. Amen.”

“I can’t let you out. You’ll run away.”

“I shall not. I promise.”

I observed the nose. It moved not. To be certain, I measured it. Four inches and a little bit. Child.

We carried on with our game.

“Children go to school.”

“Then I shall go to school.”

“They learn their lessons.”

“Then so shall I.”

“It would be ridiculous!” I said, laughing at the idea. But look there: a seed growing in my head.

“I would like to try. Please, sir.”

“You will run away.”

“No, no, I shall not.”

I observed. I measured. Inches four and a little bit.

“No,” I said finally.

“Help me! You can help, sir. Father, you can, I know.”

I could come up with no other response, so I did the only thing I could think of: I locked him in and I went outside. Where I could think. I was having ideas.

As I walked, I confess, I began to dream of money—a deal of money—that might suddenly be within reach. And why not? I deserved it, didn’t I, after all these lean years? I was the maker, I alone. But first I had some things to do. To get more money you must start by investing a little, I thought, so I took my own coat down to Master Paoli’s store—the greatest shop in all Collodi, almost anything may be purchased there—and sold it. With the money from the coat, I bought from Paoli some secondhand children’s clothes, and something else: a schoolbook. And then, fool that I was, I carried them all home.

We clothe our children so they may fit in, do we not? I showed him the clothes and his wooden eyes seemed to grow. He reached out and put them on; a little baggy, but they fit well enough. The sight of him clothed made my eyes itch. So much more convincing wearing the pair of old shorts, the collarless shirt. How splendid to see a stick turning the pages of a schoolbook. Yes, I thought, there was a trial: If I brought this woodlife to school, how would the children react? They’d not keep quiet, that was certain. They’d spread the news. The wooden child would become famous. First in Collodi, then throughout the world. And because of it, I too.

It would be the most wonderful business.

I had no understanding of the danger, not yet.

I took the screw eye from out of his back. “You no longer need this, my good boy.” And so he—I began to call him he you see, I went that way at last—and so, yes, he would go into the world after all, this thing of mine, my mannequin.

“It is time for you to go to school, my little boy of pine.”

“Father, what is my name? I should have a name if I’m going to school.”

“Puppet.”

“That is not a name.”

Wooden monster, I thought. Haunted spirit begot from loneliness. Impossible life, miracle and curse. Specter stump. But I said, “Wood chip, wood louse, sawdust, shaving, lumberlife, kindling, pine pit—yes, there must be some pine, some Pino, in the name. Pinospero, Pinocido, Pinorizio, no, just plain Pino. Only pine, for that is you, or for fondness, to add a nut, a noce. . . . Pinocchio.

“Pinocchio?” he asked, excited.

“Yes, then, Pinocchio.”

“Pinocchio!”

“It is time for school, Pinocchio.”

“Goodbye, Babbo.”

“Goodbye, Pinocchio.”

I opened the door, how the light rushed in through the oblong, and I watched him walk out into the world. To see him so illuminated! Down the street he went, out of my reach, toward the schoolhouse.

I watched the breeze ruffle his clothes, as if the wind itself supposed he was one of us. To think I had made such a creature, that set forth this way on its own feet! How well, I thought, I shall be known for it. How celebrated—the creator of life. I shall be rich, I think. I watched him go, his wooden gait, his upright form trying to be flesh. What a thing. He walked as if he belonged to the world. I did not call him back, and off he creaked, as I watched. It quite broke my heart. To see him so excited, with his schoolbook, as if he were equal to any other. Off, impossible thing! Yes, off to school.

And he never came back.

How I waited. But he never. I’d lost my life. All company gone.

I have not seen him since. Unless in a dream be counted.

Though I dedicate my life to recovering him.

The school day ended, and my nightmare began.

I waited, as I say, but the wooden boy never returned. I looked out the window. Time after time I arose from my chair and nearly set out the door, stopped only when I thought of how I might sound to others. Have you seen my boy? He is a stick, a carving, a puppet. So I sat in silence, hoping for his return.

A few hours later, unable to wait any longer, I set out at last to find my wooden child. I went to the school, but he was not there, of course. Nor had he ever been. Nor was he in any of the nearby streets, nor anywhere in all Collodi. My panic mounted. I kept imagining him hiding behind a tree. The sight of a branch made my heart beat faster. But it was never him.

So then I must go farther. Beyond the walls of our town, high and low, I sought my son. Yes, I had begun to call him that then, I had come that far. Please, have you seen? A boy, my wooden boy? Wooden? You mean that he has a wooden leg? they replied. Poor thing! No, no, I said, he is wooden top to toe. How I was laughed at, mocked from place to place.

“It—he,” I said, “belongs to me. I made him. I carved him. My finest work.”

“Sculpture is it, now?”

“Yes, yes,” I said again and over. “Mine. My doing. My darling.”

“It got up, then, you say?” said the person beginning to understand. “Your handiwork did, and it fled?”

“Well, yes, it could be put that way—or it may have gotten lost.”

“What state must a man be in, to be convinced that his own things desert him!” The people would not believe me.

“He has gone out on his own, without permission, my sculpture. I demand him back.”

And on it went, from town to town. Word spread of my mania; some towns it reached before I did myself. Mad Joe, they called me. But I was not. I was so sure of him, the wooden child.

To be fair, not everyone laughed at me.

“Such a phenomenon,” said one old fishwife, a wrinkled piece of life who showed the kindness to listen to me. “It’s the days we live in. Do you know there has been spotted off the coast an enormous shark? The size of a city hall. Yes, yes, it’s the days we live in.”

“I’m not talking about a shark!”

“Perhaps tomorrow the world will cease.”

She had at least listened.

Yes, that was when I first heard of the great sea creature. It was called at times shark, at others whale. People had seen it. The monster thing. I heard of it now and then, so often as I roamed, that I wondered if it was somehow connected to the wooden boy. The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person. Perhaps, in that small window of miracles, this gross leviathan had also been hatched, born to rid my son out of this world and thus put right the wrong I had created. Such were my thoughts. A sea monster! I believed it. Indeed, I was certain of it.

I stayed inland. I prayed the woodenlife would leave the ocean alone. Yet more and more I heard it mentioned: the seabeast, the sharkfort, the whalecastle.

On I looked for my boy. Town and city. And as I walked, finally, I began to pick up news of a strange child seen here and thereabouts. Like Kaspar Hauser, the feral boy of Nuremberg, stumbling into the town square, only this one carved of pine. It made the people gasp. Perhaps some screamed as I had done.

But never came I close to him again. Until one day:

“Yes, I have seen just such a one! A wooden boy—so high?” This from a master puppeteer with a black beard, holding his hand at stomach level to indicate the boy’s height.

“Truly? Truly?”

“Yes, yes, he was here.”

“He is mine, you see,” I said, the tears coming though I hated them to. “I made him. But I have lost him. Where is he? Show me swift.”

“He is not here, old man. No, not for weeks and months.”

“Not here again. My boy.”

“I have many other puppets,” the puppeteer said, reading my sorrow.

“No, him! I need him! Not one of your lifeless stringfellows. None other like him. My greatest work.”

“He was going home,” the puppet master said. “That’s what the puppet said, in any case. To see his father.”

“Did he? Was he? He missed me? A good boy, then! Isn’t he? Though so wooden.”

I rushed home. It took me days. I felt sure I’d find him there, and if I did, I swore I’d never let him free again.

2.