Vanilla, knuckles and wood

The ocean looked different. The waves rolled the same. The sky was as dense. The foam still like scum. And yet, the air tasted fade - as if its salt had evaporated.

Colin threw a stick of wood at Henry to get rid of him and dive his sharp eyes deeper into the tide. While Henry barked away, Colin felt the wind against his fleece jacket. It was one of those March mornings that soaked into your bones. One of those March mornings that tasted like rust. Rust from the ocean.

Rust that he wished could bend his mind.

*

His thick hands brushed the pan into the small sink. Across the cabin window, the branches of the pines swung and a smell of mint and wet ground penetrated the swollen wood of the walls.

Colin put Patrick's letter away as he sat at the table with his plate. It had been a week now, since he had been repeating those same gestures. Putting the letter away as he sat down, putting it back in place as he left. He hadn't read it - he didn't need to. What could a person who commissioned artists' work and funded residencies write for? If not to check on the progression of said artist. Colin sprinkled his French bread with slices of strawberries and mint leaves. As he caressed Henry's ears, the labrador closed his eyes and squeaked. Colin, too, wondered what he would be without him.

He wiped his hands and stepped over to his desk, to check his model a last time.

The installation he had imagined, after three years of work, still looked simple. Seven wooden sculptures that would come together to constitute what Colin called a system. That system he had designed and worked on for more than five years. It had earned him Patrick's commission and a bit of fame. Not too much, but still enough to keep his ego at peace. But on the model now only lay six pieces of wood - carved and finished. The overarching piece was still missing. Its design was clear in Colin's head, but not convincing in his gut.

Colin left to cut wood outside. If Patrick wanted an update - he'd get one. Colin bent over the wood and started his daily routine. Axing, cutting, chopping. The same gestures. The same impulse. The same back arch. The same grunt as his ax forced into its flesh. The same ritual as he walked back to his cabin, bending to the side under the weigh of his raw material.

Colin sat at his desk, in front of the window that overlooked the forest at the back of the squared space. He fetched his file and cutter. He felt flat inside, fade just like the air above the ocean. The ocean air was an approximate barometer for his level of inspiration each day. When insipid, he had none. And when rich, he had a little.

Colin laid a piece of wood and chopped it into four pieces, grabbed a quarter of it and filed it. He looked at the piece in the light of the lamp above his workbench. He smirked and threw it into the trash. Perhaps the only thing that kept him going was the smell of wood and the whisper of the file. The contract that tied him to Patrick certainly also mattered.

The chime rang outside and, soon enough, Lola's braided hair and yellow poncho entered.

"Hello!" he heard her say from behind.

She walked over to his desk and hugged his shoulders, swinging them from side to side.

"I've got something for you," she said, gluing her cheek against his beard. She hinted at a basket of vegetables on the kitchen table.

"It's from the centre's garden. All organic and fresh."

"Cool."

"I am excited for today's class," she said as she stuffed carrots and peaches into the fridge. "My students can't wait to meet the wood carver. I've told them everything -"

"About Patrick?"

"No! Of course not!" She dropped a box of tea and looked at him. "I know it's important and... secret, I would never tell anyone.”

As he didn't reply, she came closer and ran her fingers into his thick blond hair. "Is it what you are working on? The piece for Patrick?"

He pulled away from her.

"Today is Badmoodday, I see."

"Today is Badmoodday, indeed."

"No need to be rude. I just wondered if -"

"If I'm busy, I'm busy. The rule is -"

"I'm at a task, don't ask." She rolled her eyes. "I know. I just wondered if you had finished my piece?"

"Your piece?"

"The wooden aniseed," she said with a proud smile. "You promised you'd make a piece for me."

"Oh, come on. I don't have time for that."

She went back to the table to pick the box of tea she had dropped. "I brought you homemade vanilla tea from the meditation center. Seems like you need some."

"Why?"

"Because..."

She pouted, realising she was stepping into a forbidden area. Colin sighed without looking at her and grabbed a piece of wood.

"Did you give Henry something to eat? I've got some soy mousse - "

"He's fine." The file came and went across the wood. "We're both fine, actually. No need for carrots, or vanilla tea."

He heard her lay her knife over the kitchen sink. She was now standing silent.

Right.

Colin approached her from the side. Her amber eyes looked translucent from that angle. He caressed her cheek with his dry hand. And she rubbed her nose against his knuckles. When he moved into this cabin for his art residency he wasn't expecting to meet anyone. But Lola showed up one day, out of the blue. And here they were now. She gave him a quick kiss - that, as ever, he didn't see coming.

"When is your meditation class?" he asked.

"In one hour."

"Shall we go now?"

She looked surprised. His kindness always seemed to surprise her for some reason.

"We'll need time to get there and set up the space," he said.

"Don't worry about that, I borrowed a tandem from the center. We should be fast."

"A tandem? Do you even know how to ride that?"

"I'm sure we can figure it out."

*

He grabbed the bag he had prepared the night before with wood pieces and tools. Lola arranged her braids and she let him sit at the front.

"Just start, I'll follow your pace."

As Colin grabbed the handle, he lost balance. A couple of times. They stood back up and walked with the bike between their legs until they reached the gate at the end of the alley. Colin pushed the pedal and they slid down the smooth turn.

*

"You're too fast."

Right.

"There's a slope down there. Slow down, Colin, slow down."

I know.

"Watch out."

Sigh.

"Can you bend forward? It's quite windy today."

Enough.

"Why are you stopping?"

The tandem fell on the floor, and she with it, as he got off the bike.

"What are you doing?" She sneaked up from underneath the bike. "You don't want to come anymore? Is it because of Patrick's letter?"

He looked back at her.

"What did you say?"

She blushed.

"Did you read it?"

"It was on the kitchen table..."

"You read it?"

"You know I'm curious," she reached for his hand and he pushed her away. Grabbed his bag and started to walk back home.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of!" she shouted from afar. "Inspiration comes and goes. It's perfectly fine!"

As her voice echoed in the empty turn, ravens flew out of old trees. Colin kept walking without turning around.

Midway, he stopped and punched a tree.

*

He cringed as he ripped shreds of skin from his knuckles, cleaned them up with cold alcohol and dressed his wound. That was stupid. Henry moved his tail around him. Colin caressed the head of his dog with his sound hand - the one that couldn't sculpt.

The rain poured outside. Colin closed his eyes and tried to visualise a square. An exercise Lola had taught him a few weeks after they met. He breathed as his mind wandered across the first side of the square, held his breath through the next side, expelled across the third and waited another side before breathing in again. His wound stung under the bandaid and, as he tried to sooth it with his hand, it burnt.

The key turned into the keyhole and Lola stepped in, her raincoat and red braids soaked with water. Her eyes popped out as she saw his hand.

"What happened? Does it hurt?"

He looked away.

"I'm sorry. The enveloppe was there and I... Anyway. The good news is I have a plan. I thought I could introduce you to someone."

"You what?"

A long silhouette appeared in the entrance, in her fluid trench coat and boots. She had green eyes, fake-white teeth and a red kit.

Colin glanced at Lola.

"Carla is one of my meditation students."

Colin glanced at Carla.

"Her company has developed a -"

"Is that a joke?"

"Her company has developed a technology for cutting thick material and its -"

"I don't care what her company is doing. What's wrong with you?"

"I just want to help you."

"You want to help me? Then get out."

Her upper lip started to shake.

"I said out!"

Colin stood up and Lola stepped back. Carla made eye contact with Colin.

"Out," his eyes repeated without a sound.

*

Colin threw wood into the cast pan and closed its door. Through the tiny holes, flames swirled. The space warmed up a bit but the air was still wet. Colin threw a blanket over his shoulders and grabbed his seventh piece. His left thumb caressed the polished wood. He opened the cast pan again and threw it in. Though its open door, he watched it disintegrate.

Thunderstorms started to roar as the night fell and Henry scratched the door of the cabin to play outside. Colin opened up and Henry crawled out between his legs to run into the rain. Colin watched him through the curtain of water that poured from the gutter. As he turned around to step back in, he noticed Carla's red kit by the doormat.

It was neat with a tablet, wires, a set of files and small drills. A pen to draw. Would they explode if he threw them in the cast pan?

Colin turned on the screen and grabbed the pen. Was that what art would become in the future? He sneered. That ridiculous screen and that fake pen. He pressed the pen by mistake and it lit up in blue.

A window popped up on the screen: Chose project name.

Project? Whatever. Project Trial.

With the tactile pen, his left hand sketched. And sketched some more. His patterns appeared on the screen, he could zoom in and out, turn them around and play with them. He touched the wires and the file. Could these two succeed where he had failed? He plugged the file into the tablet and it started to spin. He grabbed a piece of wood and laid it on the table.

The file progressed across the wood. Much faster, much more precise than he'd ever be.

Colin stopped the machine.

He replaced the file with a sander. The wheel spun across the wood. It scrubbed it smooth and flat. Colin sat and watched in silence.

He fetched Patrick's letter and read it. Nothing surprising. Only a reminder of what he had known for a few weeks now - he, as an artist, was stuck.

As the screen cast a bluish light in his fire-lit space, Colin understood he had nothing to hide. In three years he had found his signature method to work the wood. But when it came to making his installation something and not just anything - he had failed. His system idea was worthless - a pair of wires and pixels did better than him.

Colin grabbed his notebook and scribed. Something crystallised inside him as he did. He could hear Lola's voice calling it "sitting with what's in there". He brushed that non-sense away. He was certainly not sitting and "welcoming" whatever he had inside. He was surrendering. It made him numb, it killed him. But that was were he stood at that moment.

As he finished writing, Colin stared at the text that would become his reply to Patrick. He could only see shapes not words. Or he refused to see the words. Before he could be tempted to throw it into the cast pan, he grabbed the tablet and took a snapshot of it. His letter was now a template the machine could carve into the wood.

He adjusted the drill. And plugged it back into the screen. He laid a chunk of wood onto the table and pressed play. The drill vibrated as it carved his words. He looked away as it transpierced and exposed his world. Meanwhile, he fetched newspaper and wrapped his six full size sculptures and the seventh piece - that the machine had just finished carving.

He replaced the initial seventh piece in the model with a miniature version of his letter. He removed the "System" label and called the installation "Trial" instead, for he had tried.

He laid the whole setting into a large black box and wrote Patrick's address at the top, without adding any expedient address. If it got lost, even better.

Colin removed his bandaid - a scab had started to form. He grabbed his cutter and the piece of wood from that morning. His knuckles screamed, but he ignored them and started to carve the aniseed for Lola. He laid it on the kitchen table, next to two peaches and spread vanilla tea around. A still-life Lola would certainly enjoy. He wanted to add a hand note, but he had nothing to say.

He rolled his Nick Drake poster and stuffed it into his bag with his clothes, books and tools. Adjusted his cap over his head and stepped out into the freshness of another morning on the Californian coast.

Henry barked. Colin scratched his ears and they got going.

Towards the ocean to watch the tides, towards the ocean to smell the wind.