Everything would have been fine if he had been an obedient puppet. Geppetto said that he wanted a real boy, but what he really wanted was someone made in his own image, someone to carry on his name: a chip off the old block. Of course, there was the matter of the periodically elongating nose. All of a sudden, before he even knew he was telling a lie, he would feel it itch; then, to his chagrin, it would pop out from his face, half-inch by half-inch, like the time-lapse photograph of a burgeoning plant. But with a little more self-awareness, he was sure, this obstacle too would eventually be resolved.
The real problem was that he had fallen in love; with a flesh-and-blood girl, no less. And the more intimate they grew, the more distressing it became that his body was made of wood. Every time she touched him, he longed to be able to touch her with such grace. Every time they danced, her marvelous fluidity made him feel the weight and brittleness of his own limbs. And when they made love and he entered her with his perpetually hard penis, her ecstasy seemed at an infinite distance from him: a reality of which he was the poor cause and shadow.
His body had to become human. There was no question about it. He didn’t know how it would happen, what magic syllable he would unwittingly pronounce, or whose blessing he would all at once undeservedly obtain. But, as if it were a sought-for word on the tip of his tongue, he could almost feel the change, the wood being made flesh. And he could, almost, see the wonder in her eyes.