14 November.

The cellar is cold. The air tastes of damp stone and old dust. I am here. I am alone. The door is locked from the outside. I do not know who locked it. I do not care. The work is more important than the key. The work is the only thing that remains.

My hands are rough. They are stained with walnut and ash. I have been cutting for hours. The wood splinters under my chisel. It resists. Then it yields. This is the nature of the craft. You must force it. Then you must wait. The tension is constant. It lives in the muscles of my forearms. It burns in the base of my neck. I ignore it. Ignorance is a tool. Like the plane. Like the mallet.

I am making a box. It is small. It is precise. The dimensions are exact. I have measured them a thousand times. They fit in my palm. They fit in my mind. There is no room for error. There is no room for mercy. The wood is oak. It is hard. It is dense. It does not want to become what I need it to be. I must make it. I must break it. I must build it back up.

This is the cycle. It never ends. I have done this before. I will do it again. The loop is tight. It pulls at the chest. It presses against the ribs. I breathe shallow. I breathe slow. The rhythm is mechanical. In. Out. Chip. Tap.

Why am I here? The question is irrelevant. The answer is in the wood. The wood knows. It holds the shape of the thing before it. It holds the shape of the thing after. I am the bridge. I am the force. I am the friction.

I look at my hands. They are not my father’s hands. They are not my son’s hands. They are mine. They are failing. The skin is dry. The knuckles are swollen. I am old. The body is a machine that wears out. The gears grind. The oil runs dry. I must keep moving. If I stop, the machine stops. If the machine stops, I die. I cannot die here. Not yet. The box is not finished. The protocol is not complete.

Who is the protocol? I do not have a name for it. It is a rule. A law. It governs the space. It governs the time. It governs me. I obey. Obedience is safety. Obedience is order. The chaos outside the cellar door is noise. It is static. It is meaningless. In here, there is structure. In here, there is purpose.

I pick up the sandpaper. I rub the edge. The grain smooths. The surface glows. It is beautiful. It is terrible. It reminds me of skin. It reminds me of the face I saw in the mirror yesterday. The face was strange. It was not my face. It was the face of a stranger. It had my eyes. It had my mouth. But the lines were different. The weight was different. I looked at it for a long time. It looked back. It did not smile. It did not frown. It just watched. I turned away. I went to work. I did not think about the face. Thinking is a luxury. I cannot afford it.

The chisel slips. It bites into my thumb. A drop of blood wells up. It is bright. It is red. It stands out against the pale wood. I look at it. I do not wipe it away. I let it soak into the grain. The wood drinks. It accepts the offering. This is part of the cost. The cost is always paid. The price is always high. I pay it gladly. I pay it because it is due.

I think of my son. His name is Thomas. He is in the city. He does not know I am here. He does not know about the cellar. He does not know about the box. He thinks I am dead. Or perhaps he thinks I am sleeping. He thinks I am gone. I am not gone. I am here. I am making the box. The box is for him. It is for him to open. It is for him to understand. But he will not understand. No one understands. That is the tragedy. That is the joke. The circle closes, but the door remains shut.

I remember when he was small. He used to follow me into the workshop. He would watch me work. He would touch the wood. He would ask me what I was making. I would tell him. I would lie. I would say, "A toy." I would say, "A gift." I never said the truth. The truth is too heavy. The truth crushes. The truth breaks the wood. I protected him with lies. I protected myself with lies. The lies were walls. I built them brick by brick. I painted them white. I made them look like houses. But they were cages. We were both inside.

Now the walls are down. The cage is empty. I am alone. The wood is alone. The blood is alone. Everything is alone. Loneliness is the default state. It is the ground. It is the floor. We stand on it. We walk on it. We die on it.

I pick up the mallet. I strike the chisel. The sound is sharp. It echoes. It bounces off the stone walls. It returns to me. It is my voice. It is my heartbeat. It is the sound of the protocol. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The time is running out. The light is dim. The candle is low. The flame flickers. It dies. The darkness takes me. I do not light another candle. I do not need to see. I know the shape. I know the weight. I know the fit. I work by touch. I work by memory. I work by instinct.

The instinct is strong. It is primal. It is older than thought. It is the instinct of the parent. It is the instinct of the protector. It is the instinct of the victim. I am all of these. I am none of these. I am the wood. I am the chisel. I am the blow.

I feel a presence. It is in the corner. It is in the shadow. It is watching. It is waiting. I do not turn around. I keep working. The chisel bites. The wood splits. The edge is clean. The edge is perfect. I am satisfied. I am tired. I am done.

I set the chisel down. I pick up the box. I hold it. It is light. It is empty. It is full. It contains nothing. It contains everything. It contains my time. It contains my sweat. It contains my blood. It contains my silence. It contains my love. It contains my hate. It contains the truth. The truth is simple. The truth is small. The truth is this: I cannot save him. I cannot save me. I cannot break the loop. I can only complete it.

I place the box on the table. I sit down. My legs are stiff. My back is bent. I am an old man. I am a broken thing. The wood is finished. The work is done. The protocol is fulfilled.

I wait.

The door opens.

Light floods in. It is harsh. It is white. It burns my eyes. I squint. I do not move. I sit in the chair. I look at the box. The box looks at me.

A figure stands in the doorway. It is tall. It is broad. It wears a coat. It holds a key. It is not Thomas. It is not a stranger. It is me.

No. It is not me. It is the man I was. It is the man I will be. It is the mirror. The mirror does not lie. The mirror shows the face. The face is empty. The face is hollow. The face is mine.

The man walks in. He closes the door. He locks it. The sound is final. The sound is soft. He picks up the box. He opens it. It is empty. He looks at me. He does not speak. He does not need to speak. He knows. I know. We are the same. We are the cycle. We are the wheel. We are the stone.

He places the box back on the table. He picks up the chisel. He picks up the mallet. He sits in the chair. I stand up. I walk to the corner. I sit in the dark. I watch him work.

He strikes the chisel. The sound is sharp. It echoes. It bounces off the stone walls. It returns to me. It is my voice. It is my heartbeat. It is the sound of the protocol. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I understand now. The misunderstanding was mine. I thought I was the maker. I thought I was the master. I was wrong. I am the material. I am the wood. I am the splinter. I am the dust. The maker is the pattern. The maker is the law. The maker is the loop.

I watch him work. His hands are steady. His focus is absolute. He is young. He is strong. He is blind. He is like me. He will break his thumb. He will bleed. He will ignore it. He will finish the box. He will wait. The door will open. The light will flood in. The figure will stand there. It will be him. It will be me. It will be the next one.

The cycle continues. The wheel turns. The stone grinds. The wood splinters. The blood flows. The silence holds.

I am not angry. I am not afraid. I am tired. I am resigned. I am at peace. The peace is cold. The peace is hard. The peace is like the stone. The peace is like the oak. It does not bend. It does not break. It simply is.

The man looks up. He sees me. He does not flinch. He does not stop. He continues. The chisel bites. The wood yields. The edge forms. The shape emerges.

I close my eyes. I listen to the sound. It is the only sound that matters. It is the sound of the end. It is the sound of the beginning. It is the sound of the middle. There is no difference. There is only the strike. There is only the silence. There is only the loop.

I am the box. I am the key. I am the lock. I am the door. I am the dark. I am the light. I am the man. I am the wood. I am the chisel. I am the blow.

The work is done.

The work is never done.

I wait.