14.

But thirty remaining.

I am in the business of doubting. Not sure exactly when this began, but it is certainly there now, pulling down upon the corners of my mouth. I am no longer certain. I get confused and wonder: Was I wrong? The caning, was that bad? The screw eye, did that hurt? But no good comes of spoiling the child.

Someone else has been writing in my book. It comes in when I sleep, it helps itself. Creeping ill-face, I fear, spilling darkness all about.

I am running out of light.

I shall be blind soon, though my eyes do yet work.

One thing I do perceive: A little boy of wood. If I close my eyes I seem to see him, but if I open them, he flees away.

This morning I ventured out, out onto the main deck, hands shaking. I had a saw with me; there was good wood yet to liberate. But so much blackness now, so many roots have overtaken my ship, as if it were wrapped in dark rope.

I began by hacking at the quarterdeck. Before long, I had liberated a good piece of plain wood, flat and smooth on the underside. Solid timber. How Maria screamed at me as I cut into her, but I kept at it even so: with all the holes I have made upon this ship, she would hardly be ruined by another. I am the hairy woodworm! And as I heaved the wood along, the roots seemed to grow around my ankles, until there: THERE HE WAS!

Spitting at me. The ill-face! Right before me! No doubting this time. Screeching at me. Actually there, in the flesh! ROOTS SCRATCHING!

I tumbled back down the stairs, cutting myself badly, and heaved the wood beside me into the captain’s chart room. I slammed the door behind me. And I listened.

Knock.

It is outside. Branches clicking against the door. Tap-tapping away. Toc! Toc! Chipping away at the door. And I?

I paint.

I paint him. My boy. An apology, the only way I know how.

On this board, trembling, I undertake to paint me a son. If only in two dimensions. I am so sorry, my boy, my only! I scream as I paint. To remember my boy, grown so human. I pray that he shall keep.

I start with the eyes, determined that he will look at me and even encourage me with his eyes. Might there be forgiveness there? Might his be eyes of kindness and approval? Yes, Babbo, might the eyes tell me? Yes, Babbo: all is well?

Twenty-five.

All is well, you do see.

How I do like to paint. How I do need to make things, to keep my mind from running out. I sit in my small pool of light, surrounded by such darkness, and I finish the work on my son. I write his name there, so that there can be no doubt: Eye of pine. Pinocchio. The wood that sees. Pine nut. Noce. Also occhio, for eye. Eye that pines.

Like the old masters, I paint him in darkness, but with the face in bright light. Twenty candles left, nineteen, seventeen. God grant that I may finish the picture before the light runs out.

But fifteen.

It shan’t be long now. I make my last few entries in Harald’s book while I still may. I shall fight the darkness as long as I can. Come, come, brush made of my beard. Let us go on, for God’s sake. I shall do it before the always-blackness swallows.

For, you see, I am being eclipsed. Being eaten. By the encroaching one. Oh!

Ten!

I am here.

No, no, please go. I have so little time.

When the light goes, I shall remain; then shall I take over this ship. I have been nibbling at you—soft nibbles so far, small nips, little crumbs of you have I taken. But I am ravening; I have ever more hunger. I am growing teeth of length and sharpness. My jaw aches. I shall bite. Flesh come away. I shall bite and bite and bite.

Help! You are not there. I cannot see you.

I am here. I am here when the light’s out. Here in this corner!

Oh! Go, go away. You frighten me!

I am coming.

Help!

Knock!

Bang!

The roots have come now into the chart room, spreading from ill-face, covering the walls. But I have yet possession of the cabin, and I pull myself inside. There, within, I am still a man in a room, safe a little while yet.

The bed, you see. Captain’s bed. And my light. I may set light to the ill-face and all its spreading limbs. I’ll make such a fire, I’ll burn ill-face to death: that shall be my ending.

And yet—I know this now, I cannot avoid it—it is all my doing. To create such a blackness, it did come from me. I gave it breath. And now I create the fire that will quench it. The fire will destroy the shark, and it will set my own son free.

Ill-face is nothing like my little boy. Oh, to see him again—how his face would put the blackness out. If I could but make him once more. A boy; a great, proud boy.

I love, I would tell it.

And let it free, let it swim, let it go on.

Yet here is wood before you, old man: wood still fresh, the solid bed, the boards. The tools. Might you, with one last breath, use it?

I am sorry, my son. I am so sorry. No hooks, never no more.

I, frightened, frightened you away. Did I not?

Can I bring you back?

When ill-face taps at the door, tap tap, I reply with my toc toc at this new wood. It leads me, the wood does. It always has if I let it.

Come, I tell it, break free my sorrow. Come, I beg thee.

Still, though, Joseph: let the wood do it. Toc. Toc. Tap tap. No, no, you may not come in, you may not.

It comes now, the wood—how it comes along. I feel its sides. Not quite a boy, yet, but I shall let the wood be free. No. No! This is not right, not yet. This is no child.

Trust the wood.

Can I? Did it? Move a little. Was there? Life?

Come now. Yes! It wriggles in my arm! It thrashes!

There, Pino. Come, my woodling, breathe, beat.

It moves! It does! Look!

Tap!

Toc.

Tap! Tap!

Toc. Toc.

But no, wood, you are wrong! Wood, you mustn’t. This is not feet but a tail.

A wooden tail has just slapped me in the face.

It is hard to hold back, what flippers, Pino, surely. Are you fish now?

And yet nose again—great nose, for how else can I know it is you? Come nose, nose nose. Oh, how the nose stretches out, in a spiral, to a point.

This is no wooden child I make. Look there—it has a wooden sword! Look at the weapon! Such fight in you!

Tap! Tap!

Come, hurry, there’s no time. The Maria is splitting. Come, woodlife, I’ll sharpen your sword. How it grows out of you, of your face.

Eyes, little dark eyes. See me! It lives! Oh, it LIVES!

Crash!

It is a fish! A wooden fish, but how it flaps in the captain’s cabin. Water, water, it must breathe. Oh, my fishson, fishboy, fishchild. Look at you: Nose of the Sea! Narvalo! Pinocchio’s good spirit! That is who you are. Who else could you be? A sea unicorn! A narwhal! The fish with the sharp snout! Impossible beast!

Come now, my love. Let us get you out, for the ship shall not last long. I made! Again!

Crack! Boom!

What a smashing! Yet at last I know my purpose. I take hold of my wooden son, my boy come a narwhal, my own art, and I break open the door with my own strength. I hold the wooden fish close to me.

It is there! Ill-face! Just there, beyond the door, thick with his roots. How wide it opens its mouth at the gleaming wood I hold. I hold up the wooden fish, and ill-face sees it. It opens its black mouth so wide! Such a scream it makes.

And I scream back.

And my fishboy screams. A child’s voice! Yes! Yes!

And along we rush, down the corridor, while the ill-face is caught in his scream-shock.

There’s a great rent in the ship now, I can feel it—a terrible new collapse. She has broken in two, opened a great hole, and we come to break too fast, too fast. We slip from the edge, we fall, we tumble down in the muck, until we are all down there, upon the sharkfloor.

But wait—

I dropped him! The fish, the sharp-nosed fish!

Where, boy?

And now the ill-face is coming spidering down. Black roots creeping all about, amid shrieks of splitting wood.

Ah, but there he is! The little wooden pinwhal, flapping hopeless in the damp. Quick, ’Petto, leap that carcass, rush your old bones. The dark branches are coming on!

Pick him up, wipe him down. Then run.

To the shark throat. The throat. Hurry, hurry now!

How he writhes. Soon boy, soon!