More Fantasy in the City

The Woodcarver

With a last dab of his paintbrush, Junior applied the finishing touches to his latest creation.

It was a masterpiece.  

There was no shadow of a doubt about it.  Was it his best yet?  Probably. The little wooden boy that lay on the workbench in front of him was exquisite in every detail, from the painted teeth that could be glimpsed behind pink stained lips, to the gentle sweep of black “hair” that lay across the brow.  He had even carved wrinkles and a tear in the knee of the puppet's jeans.  If it hadn't been for the pale grain of the basswood, which the woodcarver had left unpainted for the boy's skin, the mannequin could have been mistaken for a living seven year old.  

Well, perhaps not. 

A living seven year old would hardly be likely to lie on Junior's workbench so quietly.  Not without … encouragement.

And that was why he carved his puppets.  They replaced the children he had never had.  His lonely existence, living over a rundown workshop left to him by his father, Giuseppe Senior, was one that he would have loved to fill with the laughter of youngsters. That it had never happened was in a large part due to the crushing effects of bullying from the domineering, overbearing force of nature that his father had been.  Junior had learned to live in the shadows whilst his father was alive and now that he was dead, the son lived as a recluse, rarely leaving the dingy shop, existing on a hand to mouth basis from the little work that came his way.  The creation of his puppets filled his life.

He stretched his aching back, hands placed on hips, and smiled despite the soreness that had developed from the hours he had spent bent over the puppet.  Time to add the magic.  In a trice he had delved out the small, plain, tin box from cluttered darkness on the shelves above the workbench.  Contained within was his father's secret treasure.  Grimy, paint spattered hands snapped the lid open, careful not to spill the contents.

A golden dust glittered beneath his finger tips.  It seemed to glow with its own life, shimmering rainbow patterns chasing each other across the surface of the grains.  After pinching only enough to catch beneath his nails, he sprinkled it over the puppet's mouth and nose and waited.

He was always amazed by pixie dust.  Hard to find a blue pixie and harder still to get them to give up their secrets but his father had managed it somehow.  Probably slapped the little monster, Junior thought with a wry smile. I'd like to have seen how that went.  Not well, I'd guess.

The vigil lasted late into the night. Occasionally Junior would shuffle off to a corner of the workshop to recharge his mug from a pan of acrid coffee, many times heated and reheated, which stood upon a filthy stove.  With repressed excitement, he also checked his other preparations.  Quivering calloused fingers trailed through the blued steel tacks that were clustered together on a second bench, beside the puppet's bed, a much rougher creation of sawn pine, splintering at the edges.  Without a deal of interest, he tidied up the workshop; listlessly sweeping paper thin curls of wood, putting lids on tins, putting away stock, filling a trashcan full of broken tools, rags, food cartons and bills.  The detritus of his life was piled high around him in torn cardboard cartons, spilling their dirt encrusted contents here and there into the shady corners of the shop.  Junior's efforts barely touched the clutter.

Perhaps at two in the morning, a sound from the puppet's bench broke Junior's reverie.  He put down the ancient copy of Practical Wandmaker he had been leafing through and made his way over.

The little wooden boy lay in a pool of light cast from a single shaded bulb.  The new red paint on the t-shirt and the blue of the jeans seemed to suck in the light, taking on deeper, richer tones.  The precisely modelled sneakers caught his eye, copies of Junior's from his own miserable childhood, even down to the  worn tread pattern on the sole.