It’s Too Late To Save My Soul Now, Mother.

My hobby is one of the oldest ones in the world. Cavemen probably carved bones in the evenings to keep their hands busy. They made fishing hooks and decorative items such as jewellery in the glow of the fire, using materials that were readily to hand - the leftovers of their meal.

Far down the centuries, carving became the hobby of idle hands; sailors carved whale bones and called it scrimshaw. They made pipes then they’d stuff them with tobacco from the indies and ignite, filling the air with sweet smoke. The most famous pipes were made of a mineral, sepiolite, also called meerschaum and believed to originate in Turkey. The delicate hand-crafting leaves areas of lighter and heavier carving, creating the illusion of flickering light when the pipe is lit. For epochs, travelling men would wrestle their large hands into creating art for those left behind at home - souvenirs of foreign places and memories of those far away.

The best bones for carving are human ones, but of course society doesn’t approve of boiling up our neighbours to make into raw material for craft purposes, so I was restricted to using the bones from the butcher, who looked at me with a sour face when I went in to collect them. They’re for my dog, I’d claim, but I’m sure he could tell by my failure to meet his eyes that I wasn’t telling the truth.

But it is all worth it when I’ve completed my carving and set light to a small wad of tobacco and see the delicate light shining though like a stained-glass window into the designs from yesteryear now carved onto my very soul.

If only my mother could see how I’ve progressed with my hobby, I’m sure she’d regret the words she said to me when she saw my first clumsy attempts at carving. She took me to the holy priest and asked for an exorcism when she found my sister screaming because I’d cut notches into her thigh bone. Of course, all the thunder and lightning cast down on me by the church for choosing such an abhorrent hobby couldn’t put me off. If anything, it made my passion more determined. Now I resort to breaking into the undertaker’s and opening the coffins of the soon-to-be interred so I can remove a limb or two before gluing the lid down so nobody can see the subterfuge.

Shortlisted in the Farnham Flash competition 2024 - Available from Amazon:
https://amzn.eu/d/0ezpiKo5