HC: Handyman | Ch. 182 - Daze

Lunch had come and gone—two large pizzas, both piping hot and delivered straight to the professor’s door.

They walked back to the workshop, where the professor rummaged through a bag filled with clinking objects. After a moment of digging, he pulled something out—a bone.

“This is beef,” he said, handing it to Jack. It was a femur—cleaned, pale, and solid in his grip. “I boil them first to strip the meat, scrub off the marrow, then let them sun-dry for a few days. Once dry, I soak them in a light peroxide solution—nothing harsh, just enough to kill odor and preserve the texture without bleaching the character out of it.”

Jack turned it over in his hands. “Nice. Where’d you get it?”

“The local butcher gives them to me.”

Jack leaned in, eyes sharp. Even though the morning had been fascinating, this—this was what he’d been waiting for. To carve. To create. To get pointers from the professor as he watched him work.

But instead of reaching for tools, the professor pulled a small, old-fashioned stopwatch from his coat pocket.

“I want you to spend ten minutes with this bone. Just it and you,” he said, voice calm but certain.

Jack glanced at the workbench, expecting the professor to hand him a carving knife. But no blade came.

The professor continued, not even glancing toward the shelves full of tools. “Touch it. Turn it. Feel the weight. Think about its shape. What it can hold. What it wants to become.”

Wait—what? I’m not carving yet? He just wants me to look at it for ten minutes?

Jack blinked, caught off guard. “I mean… I’ve never actually carved bone before. Kind of hard to imagine what I’m supposed to do with it when I’ve got zero experience.”

From the side, he heard Marie stifle a laugh.

The professor only shrugged. “You’ve done etching, though. With pottery?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. I have.”

“It’s not that different. Bone’s harder, sure. Less forgiving. Smaller canvas. But the mindset’s the same. By the way, we carve pots when they’re in the… what stage now?” He trailed off, giving Jack a pointed look.

Jack frowned. “Bone-dry stage?”

The professor gave a satisfied wink. “Exactly.”

Jack let out a slow breath. He wasn’t sure if that had been a joke or not—but either way, he got the message.

“Alright. I’ll do it.”

“Very well.” The stopwatch clicked. “The time starts… now.”

Jack turned the bone over in his hands. It was heavier than he’d expected, despite being hollow. The surface had a dull, matte texture—faint ridges, tiny pores, subtle imperfections that broke the light in uneven patterns. One end still bore the jagged edge left behind by the butcher’s saw, while the other had the rounded socket where it once met the hip joint of a cow—or maybe a bull.

He turned it again. Then again. Fingers skimming the contours, thumb brushing a small chip near the center.

Ten minutes, he thought. What am I supposed to see in ten minutes?

He kept looking. Kept touching the bone.

“How long has it been?” he asked aloud.

“One minute!” the professor called back.

Jack gulped. Only one? It felt like longer.

He sighed, rolling his shoulders and mustering focus. What shape does it hold? What does it want to become? He didn’t know. A charm? A face? Every time he tried to settle on something, his eyes caught on another detail. A bump here. A dip there. A ridge that threw the idea off balance.

This wasn’t like clay. With clay, he could choose how big a vase was. How curved. How wide the mouth. Clay welcomed the blade. It bent. Accepted. Bone didn’t. Bone pushed back.

He thought back to the last time he’d tried etching with a carving tool—the scene of the One-Eyes and the Bears. The blade had kept slipping or gouging the vase, no matter how steady his hand or how light his pressure. Four ruined vases later, he’d given up and switched to [Wax Resist].

If that had been hard—on soft clay—then what am I doing now?

He looked down at the bone again and let his fingers trace the shape. He heard the professor’s words echo faintly in his mind: “What it wants to become…”

How could a bone want something?

Then it clicked.

Maybe this wasn’t about forcing his idea onto it. Maybe the only way forward was with the bone’s help.

The thought didn’t crash in like a revelation. It landed like a pebble in water—quiet, soft, and slowly spreading.

He shifted in his seat. Not to move away—just to adjust. His thumb lingered along the wide end. That could hold something… flowers, maybe? The curve along the edge—a wave? The flatter part toward the middle—maybe that was where a face went. Not a literal one. Something symbolic.

The stopwatch ticked beside him. He barely noticed.

Across the workshop, the professor watched in silence, letting the moment stretch. There was no rush. No instructions. Just space.

Jack hadn’t realized how still he’d become. He wasn’t bouncing between ideas anymore. He wasn’t fidgeting. He was just... there.

And for the first time since he’d picked up the bone, something started to take shape in his mind. Not a finished piece. Not a polished plan. But a seed of an idea. A carving—smooth, rounded—with a line, no, a groove, running down the center. Splitting near the end like roots… or river branches.

He didn’t know what it meant. But it felt like a beginning.

The stopwatch rang.

Jack blinked as if waking from a light dream. He looked up—and found Professor Masse and Marie watching him with faint smiles.

“Told you, Professor,” she said, arms crossed.

Masse gave a small nod.

“Told what?” Jack asked, frowning.

“Not important, not important,” Masse replied, waving a hand. “What matters is—you’ve met your canvas. Now it’s time for the next step.”

Jack swallowed. His fingers twitched, already itching for a knife. After spending so long with the bone, ideas had started to crystallize—shapes he didn’t want to lose.

But instead of a blade, the professor handed him a small clipboard, a few sheets of paper, and a well-used mechanical pencil.

Jack blinked. “What is this?”

“Pencil and paper, of course!” Masse beamed. “Time to sketch your idea.”

Jack hesitated. “But I’m not good at drawing.”

“It doesn’t need to be perfect,” Masse said. “As long as it makes sense to you.”

Jack looked down at the blank paper, then back at the bone. His frown deepened.

He’d always been skeptical about sketching. Drawing had never been his strength, and staring at an empty page didn’t help. But this morning had already started to shift something in him. The professor clearly knew his craft, and Jack had genuinely enjoyed the lesson. Time had flown by without him realizing it.

He stole a glance at Marie. She didn’t say a word—just gave him a small, knowing look. The kind that said you’ll get more out of this than you think.

Jack exhaled slowly.

He still wasn’t convinced this was the right approach. But if Masse believed in it, and Marie believed in him… then he’d trust the process.

He set the clipboard on the bench and adjusted his grip on the pencil.

“Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s give it a shot.”

The professor lifted the stopwatch again. “Let me give you thirty minutes for this next step, alright?”

“Thirty?” Jack raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite a bit.”

Masse chuckled but didn’t argue. “Ready? Go.”

Jack sighed, rolled his shoulders, and settled at the corner bench. The bone rested beside him, catching the light along its worn edge.

He looked at the page. Then the bone. Then back again.

Alright. Let’s try.

His first few lines were light and hesitant. A circle—no, more of an oval. Then a spiral. Too wide. He erased it, narrowed it down. Added a second spiral opposite the first—mirrored. Beneath that, a slanted groove. A hint of a smile, maybe.

It wasn’t symmetrical. Wasn’t clean. But something about it felt… right. Familiar. Like a pattern he’d glimpsed that morning, buried in one of the professor’s photos—maybe on a Polynesian pendant or the scrimshawed whale tooth. He couldn’t place it exactly, but the image had lingered, and now it was surfacing through his fingers.

He moved the pencil again. A shape took form. He paused and frowned. It wasn’t what he wanted. Off, somehow.

He started a second sketch. This time, he followed the side profile of the bone. A series of curved ridges. A flowing band wrapping around the shaft like a wave.

Then another. This one more geometric—clean, angled lines forming a tapering design, almost like teeth stacked in formation.

The minutes passed without him noticing. His pencil tapped. Sketched. Stopped. Backtracked. Re-tried. He shaded lightly here, erased a swirl there. None of it was perfect. But none of it had to be.

When the professor finally called, “Time’s up!” Jack looked up, surprised.

Five pages sat in front of him—rough sketches, messy in places, unfinished in others, but undeniably his.

He rubbed his neck. “Think I might’ve gone overboard. I ended up making five different ones.”

The professor chuckled. “Some artists make dozens. Even hundreds of sketches before settling on a single design.”

Jack blinked. “Hundreds?”

Masse took the clipboard and flipped through the pages. His eyes moved steadily, brows twitching slightly as he turned each sheet.

Then he smiled. A small one, but genuine.

“You’re ready for the next step.”

He turned, reached into a drawer beneath the workbench, and pulled out a knife. It was fine, long, and slender, with a dark wooden handle worn smooth by years of use. The blade was narrow, its edge honed to a delicate curve and gleamed faintly under the lamp.

Jack grinned, rolling up his sleeves. Finally.

But instead of handing him the knife, the professor walked past and gently picked up the bone from Jack’s side of the bench.

“Now,” Masse said, testing the balance of the blade in his grip, “you’ll get to see what I do with this same bone. Let’s see how different it is from your vision. Shall we?”

Jack’s grin faltered. “S-sure.”

He backed away, giving the professor space, then crossed over to where Marie stood near the shelves.

“You really thought you were going to carve next, didn’t you?” she teased, nudging him lightly.

“Yeah,” Jack muttered.

She giggled, knowingly.

The professor stepped beneath the overhead lamp. Light pooled across the workbench, illuminating the bone resting in his palm. And then… nothing.

He didn’t move.

For nearly a full minute, Masse stood completely still, eyes fixed on the femur. Eventually, he turned it once. Then twice. Studied its surface like he was listening to something only he could hear. The studio seemed to hold its breath with him. Even Marie didn’t speak.

Jack found himself holding still, too. Watching.

Then the knife came down.

At first, the blade barely touched the surface—just soft, shallow scores repeated along a looping curve. Again and again, Masse traced the same path, feathering the line into the bone with the lightest pressure. The motion looked repetitive. Uneventful. The same arc. The same pass.

Jack squinted. “What’s he doing?”

“Guides,” Marie said. “He’s not carving yet—he’s laying the path. Think of it like sketching, but with a blade.”

Eventually, Masse set the knife aside and reached for another tool—a short-handled one with a curved metal edge. He began scooping out soft layers from the surface around the spiral. Shavings curled off like pale ribbons. The spiral remained untouched, but everything around it was slowly sinking. Relief carving—Jack recognized it now. Carving the background down so the subject could stand out.

Still, it wasn’t obvious what the subject was.

“What’s that tool called?” he whispered.

“A gouge,” Marie replied quietly.

Jack nodded, eyes never leaving the motion.

The gouge traced tight paths around the raised line, defining its borders. Masse switched to a smaller flat chisel to clean up the transitions, then returned to the gouge to deepen the relief. Bit by bit, the background fell away. And with it, something else rose.

It wasn’t just a spiral anymore. The curve had weight. Rhythm. A subtle tension that didn’t belong to decoration. It twisted like a spine in motion, like something coiling around a branch.

Jack watched in silence, unsure—until Masse picked up a needle-thin scribe and began scoring delicate lines into the raised figure. Repeating patterns. Tiny, careful strokes. The texture caught the light.

Scales.

Jack’s breath caught. It wasn’t a spiral. It was a body. A snake’s body.

The rest unfolded steadily. Masse shaped the belly, then the arch of the back, defining the creature’s motion along the bone. When he reached the head, he returned to the carving knife—forming the rounded skull, the slight flare of the neck, the closed mouth. No drama. No fangs. Just presence. Composed and watchful.

Only then did he return to the background. With a small chisel, he added grooves and ridges to the “trunk” behind the snake, turning the negative space into textured bark. It didn’t compete. It framed.

When he finally set the tools down, the bone had changed.

What had begun as a simple spiral was now unmistakable—a serpent climbing a tree, caught mid-motion. Still, but not lifeless.

Jack exhaled slowly.

Beside him, Marie smiled. “Told you.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t stop looking.

“Thank you so much for letting us stay here so long,” he heard her say a moment later.

The words pulled Jack out of his haze.

“W-what? But we just had lunch. I haven’t even carved anything yet.”

Marie and the professor exchanged a knowing look and a laugh.

“Jack,” she said gently, “do you know what time it is?”

He blinked, pulled out his phone—and nearly dropped it. “It’s seven p.m.?!”

“Yep. And if you don’t head out soon, you’re going to get home way too late.”

Jack stood there in a daze, phone still in hand. It felt like he’d only just sat down to watch the professor work. Like the carving had unfolded over minutes—not hours. But somehow, five had passed.

He didn’t fully understand what had just happened—only that something inside him had shifted. And whatever it was, he wasn’t ready to let go of it.

Ch. 181 - Picking the Baton

INDEX

Ch. 183 - Passenger