I am sitting by the window, light streaming in. Most of the people are outside now. The children are playing. The adults are working in the fields. Life is going on all around us. It's a beautiful day. Or, it would be a beautiful day had it not been for the constant pressure weighing down upon me. Weighing down upon all of us. 

I'm minutely carving the perfect, symmetric, geometrical lines and ridges into the piece of wood in my hand. It's beyond stressful. It's overwhelming. The fear courses through me and my nerves are unravelling as I move the stylus perfectly, minutely, steadily over the wood.

Malati and I take turns. One of us goes into the fields one day and one of us stays behind to carve. The next day we switch it, the other one going into the fields. It helps take some of the weight of the pressure off. Everything is better when done together. Even horrible tasks such as this. Especially horrible tasks such as this. 

The pressure squeezes me right in my throat and my gut. The pressure overcomes my mind. The aching, arching pressure leaves me almost nauseous and I don't think I'll ever be able to breathe easy. I never was able to breathe easy. 

I have to get this exactly, one hundred percent right. I have to make it beautiful, symmetrical, intricate, multi-layered, elegant, stylish, perfect. I have to make this piece of wood in my hand as perfect as it can possibly be and I don't know if I'll succeed. 

I don't know if I'll fail. 

People fail all the time. Their carvings have flaws, kinks, things which are not perfect. And they pay the price for it. Lifemaker knows, they pay the price. People who have succeeded once can fail later. People who have succeeded twice, even, can still fail. There's no room for overconfidence here. There is no room for anything except perfection. 

I don't have much time left. A scant few months. A scant few months before our craftsmanship is put to the ultimate test. And I cannot let any of this precious time go to waste. I am already heavy with the new baby growing within me, and I have to be finished before the child is ready to come into the world. I have to be finished before it comes to haunt us again. 

Not that it doesn't haunt us all the time, in a more indirect yet still weighted way. 

And so therefore I am working through my cramped hands and I am working through my straining mind and I am grinding down on my back and I'm full of tension all over my body but still I keep working on. Still, I can't do anything about it. I have to gulp down the stress and the pain and I have to keep working on. 

Because we're running out of time. 

We're running out of time. 

We're running out of time. 

It's not as if we didn't spend a lot of time on the carving. Malati and I started a new carving the day after Honano was born. You never know when the next baby will come. You try to not have any others but still you never know when the next baby is going to come. We had a good six years after our first baby was born in order to prepare for a new one though, thankfully. 

I wonder, briefly, if making a child would be a less stressful thing, if it would be a joyous thing instead, if it hadn't been for it. If we could be sure that the young lives we bring into the world could be safe and could be prosperous. If the beginnings were not tainted with ends, if the love was not coloured by fear, I think pregnancy and childbirth could in fact be absolutely beautiful times of joy and love and brightness and hope. 

But dreaming has no point. Wishing that things were better had no point. We have to cope with what we have to cope with and we have to live through what we have to live through. It exists. No matter what we desire, it exists. No matter what the Lifemaker desires, even, it exists. And all the forces of the world are abjectly powerless against it. And so we have to learn how to live with the pain, with the grief, with the fear. We have to learn how to live with the hurt and the loss and the pressure. We have to learn how to live with the anguish. 

My eyes are hurting from the concentration. They are aching in a way that makes me just want to close them and to put cool water on my eyelids. But I can't do that. Not now. We're running out of time. And I still have to focus anyways. I still have to focus as much as humanly possible, more than humanly possible, on the task at hand. No matter how much the strain hurts, I have to strain everything within myself. 

I lose track of time. I always lose track of time when these things are happening. When I am carving the offering. Time seems to stall forever and pass by as quickly as sand through my fingers. And I have no idea whether seconds or hours or nothing or everything is passing. But eventually, I am reminded of the steady, methodical ticking of time as the light that streams in from outside the window grows dim and soft. 

I cannot work in this light. It's too dim. And so I gather a handful of candles and I ever so slowly, carefully, light them one by one, making sure to keep them away from the offering. If it gets burned or even singed, we are done for. My baby is done for. The baby who I already love, despite never having met them, that sweet baby is done for. 

And so I work by the light of the candles and by the light of the window until the light outside dims even more, as twilight stretches its dark blue blanket over the sky and dims the fields outside. It's too dark to work now. The light of the candles, of even the fire, is not strong enough to illuminate the carving properly. If we work in darkness the chance of making a mistake is far too high. We can't take that chance. 

And so I get up and take our carving down the wooden steps and into the darkness of the cellar. I find the box made of strong metal placed in the musty darkness of the cellar. It is the most expensive thing that we own. I open the heavy padlock with the key hanging on a string around my neck, and I place the carving carefully inside the box. I then lock it up tight to ensure that it stays safe. 

I ascend the stairs and get ready to be in the midst of humanity again. 

———

It's warm, under the blankets. It's soft and sweet, with my little six-year-old boy sleeping in front of me, my arm over him, my wife sleeping behind him. It's sweet and it's soft and in the intimacy of the moment, I almost feel safe. 

I almost feel as safe as I ever could be within my life, a life that has always been coloured with disquietude. But I have these people. I have these people. No matter what else happens, I have these people. And I get to sleep alongside them on worn, soft blankets on the floor of our house in the midst of the summer night. 

I can't sleep right now. I'm not certain why. Though I think that it's for the best. It means that I have the time and consciousness to take this in. I have the opportunity to feel my baby and my wife sleeping beside me, peaceful, content, oblivious to the cares and the worries of the waking world, dreaming whatever they're dreaming in tranquility. And it's beautiful, it's ever so beautiful, to experience this. To feel their warmth and their even breathing, to lie beside them and drink them down like pure, clear water. 

I drift off to sleep, mind heavy with a cozy sort of tiredness. At least tonight, everything is as perfect as it can be. 

I am jolted awake. I smell smoke. All the serenity shatters around me as I realize that I smell smoke. And this isn't faint and distant campfire smoke either. It's close. I can tell that it's close. My heart thuds in my chest as I sit up on my blankets. 

"Wake up! Wake up!" I yell at my family, violently shaking Honano. "There's a fire! There's a fire! We need to leave!" Sharp panic dances through me. 

"Mommy. What?" Little Honano asks, confused and weary. He's so sweet. So sweet. 

"We have to go. There's a fire." My voice is firm and urgent. I can hear the fire crackling in the main room. 

"What the heck?" Malati exclaims, drowsy confusion coating her thoughts and words. 

"Malati! Wake up! We need to go!" We don't have much time. I need to save my family. "Climb out the window!" I tell them, a plan forming in my alert mind. 

Honano's expression is open and fearful. I get up and pull him up alongside me. I drag him to the window. 

"What about the offering?" Malati's voice is horrified and filled with dread. The offering! It's still in the cellar! I turn to look at her, terror flashing in my eyes. 

"We have to get it!" I yell at her.

"I'll get it. You focus on getting Honano out."

I don't want to do this. I don't want to be sending Malati out into the danger of the fire. But I have to do this. It's the only way to keep the baby safe. 

All these thoughts rush through me in a fraction of a second as I rush over to the window, dragging my son behind me. I take him in my arms, and push him out the window. He cries out in fear. But he is out of the house. Safe. I climb out after him, and grab him by his skinny little arm again. I take him to a safe spot a few houses over. 

"Don't go anywhere," I tell him solemnly as I think about what I must do next. Malati must still be in there, trekking through the flames in order to get to the precious metal box inside the cellar. I hope she's safe. I know she's not. 

I bang frantically on the doors of my neighbours. And I tell them what has happened, all in a rush. I watch their confused, sleepy faces become alert and afraid. And my neighbours bang on the doors of their neighbours until the whole village is awake. 

Everyone has wide, alert, afraid eyes as they frantically rush around with buckets, pouring water onto the fire whenever it gets too close to the other houses. It's chaos all around me. But it's an ordered sort of chaos. Everyone has sprung into frenzied action. Everyone knows what to do. Everyone knows to keep the neighbourhood safe. 

I am the only one who is standing still. I am the only one who doesn't have a job, have a purpose. I can only take it in, only take everything around me in as I watch my house burn. Images flow through my mind, passing by as if I am watching everything from a distance, as if I am watching everything from underwater. I hear shouts from all sorts of directions all around me but I can't make out what they are saying. 

All I know is that something is deeply, terribly wrong. All I feel is absolute dread within the very depths of my soul. 

I am drowning in it. And I sink deeper and deeper, faster and faster as the burning brightness moves and flows through my eyes, as the darkness envelops everything, as people rush this way and that, steering clear of me as they come careening by. 

Suddenly it's all too much. The mountain on my chest is too much. I start screaming, covering my ears and closing my eyes and sinking to my knees. In the darkness all around me all I can feel is the ripping in my throat, the oozing in my chest, the twisting in my gut. I open my eyes. And there again is the chaos and the disorientation of the world. I close them again. And I keep screaming. 

Eventually there is something warm against my shoulder. I open my eyes to see someone kneeling in front of me. They are telling me something. But I don't know what. But they keep repeating the words over and over again until the world becomes a little bit more calm and I can understand. 

"It's okay. You're okay. Everyone's okay." Tomino from across the village has a low voice, and his words are soothing. But still, something twists in my gut. 

"Where's my son? Is he safe?" The words come rushing out so fast that one word bleeds into another. 

"He is. He's perfectly safe. Everyone's safe."

"And my wife?"

"She's safe too, although she had major burns. She's with the healer."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

"Hey, it's okay. Can I get you some water?"

"That would be appreciated."

"Alright. Give me a moment."

I sit there in the nighttime collecting my thoughts until he returns with a cup in hand. I drink it down in one full desperate swoop. 

"Did she get the box?" I ask him when I'm done. 

"The box? Oh, yes, she did. She got really bad burns on her hands, though. Don't worry. They'll heal. She was smart enough to use two rocks to grasp the box."

"Oh, thank the Lifemaker." I breathe a sigh of relief. So maybe everything is alright after all. 

Tomino rubs slow circles on my back with his warm hand. And that simple action is so deeply grounding, like a soothing tea for my soul. For this I am so grateful. 

"Do you want to go see her?" He asks me. 

"Sure." 

He gives me his hand to help me up and I rise from the ground. We continue exchanging words as we walk through the night to the healer's hut. 

Inside I find my wife, my son, Afeena, Colato, and a handful of other people, along with the healers Faya and Miro. 

"How are you doing?" Miro asks me. 

"A lot better now that I'm here," I reply. 

"Your wife is in good hands. Do not worry." Faya's voice is kind. 

"I am," Malati replies, "and so are my hands." She chuckles a little. Her hands are covered in salve and so are her shoulders, her back, and her feet. 

"Mommy," Honano starts, worry etched in his young voice, "I stayed right where you told me to until Colato got me. And then I went with him to the healing house and I saw all the people here. 

"That's great, sweetheart. I'm so proud of you." I smile at him, though my smile contains worry at its edges. "Were you scared?"

"I was, but I'm not anymore."

"That's good. You were very brave." I turn to Malati. "Is the box okay?" I ask her. 

"It is."

So we made it out after all. We're all okay. Everything's okay. We're all okay. The conversation goes on around me, with everyone joining in chaotically and seamlessly. I join in. And my heart rests easy. As easy as it can at least. Of course my heart cannot ever rest truly easy. I don't even know what that's like.