I curse obscenities and overturn the workshop. Small faces watch from the shelves, expressionless as the baker’s wife in the alley with her skirts raised and her floured hands pressed against the brick wall. She didn’t smile this time, didn’t moan my name – Gepetto – just shook her dress straight and erased the white palm prints with her apron. The heat from her husband’s oven, filled with loaves, was a warm breath on my neck. A future swells within her but it’s not mine.

I shove half-formed blocks of wood and bolts of bright cloth onto the floor, kick them into a pile while little legs dangle behind me, their delicate joints allowing the smallest sway from the reverberations of my voice. I shred all my papers, every drawing and careful plan. The pieces fall like lies.

It’s spring and the fire has been allowed to burn low, but with tongs I can reach into its red gullet and pull out a thick, hot ember – a last knot of heartwood too dense and stubborn to burn quickly. I drop it on the pile in the center of the room.

Outside, I pull my scarf close around my neck and curse again, this time at the wet snow slapping my face. Through a window clouded with heat and smoke I see my children, paint melting from their eyes and mouths, the way their arms and legs take the flames like lovers.

I fumble in the pocket of my coat for a last heel of bread, chewing until my teeth ache and I have to swallow. It catches in my throat.