Cherry-red

He had no money, no girl, and no inspiration. Plenty of perspiration, though, as he tried not to think about her, and instead wrestled with the workbench and the vice. As he practised the night-class motions, clouds of sawdust drew the bile out of his unrequited agonies, sucking it out like poison from a wound. The rhythm of planing and sanding drew him further and further into a kind of meditation, and at one point he even caught himself singing.

The plain, hinged box was almost finished as per the requirements for the next class, and each surface reflected the meticulous, obvious care of the beginner. But the last, the tiniest, the sweetest of his miseries was still with him, and this he sank into the lid of his creation. He scratched a cartoon heart into it, fat and luscious in shape, close in design to the original rectangle. This etching was to guide his trimming, bevelling, and smoothing, on which he duly, slowly, set to work. The sun arced across the sky, and was just saying its goodbyes as he added a layer of paint to the heart. Blending with the grain of the wood it became a deep, dark, cherry-red. He rubbed a mixture of beeswax and sweat into the box, and the romantic in him saw a bead of his love—an unexciting, regular, rather normal love—drop off his brow into this mix.

The woodwork class were politely interested in his first foray into design; the object of his desire thought it tawdry, and declared a no-thankyou the day after; he sold it at the market that weekend for nine pounds ninety-nine.

What once took days eventually takes minutes. He foresaw a universe in that ten-pounds-less-a-shaving. One day, he knew, carpentry would come easily to him; rejection might still stick in his throat. Years later, he'd sold ten thousand pretty boxes, and lathed a thousand stained bowl-like objets d'art. But he only had a vague recollection of the woman he once swore he'd adore for a hundred years and more. He wouldn't be able to tell you the scent of her perfume or the colour of her hair; yet, if he only closed his eyes for a second, his nose would twitch on the dampening whiff of the sawdust, and in his mind's eye he would see fields and fields of cherry-red.