Tailor

Hillel Barak

Tailor, about 23 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.

Hillel Barak sits cross-legged on the shop floor, needle moving in a steady rhythm, the cloth neat across their knees. They are small for fifteen, with quick hands and a habit of humming old harvest tunes while they stitch, though their eyes wander to the window whenever the fog shifts. Curious to a fault, they ask every customer about the weather, the fields, the road’s end, and believe the answers without fuss, even the strange ones. The town calls them steady, a good worker, though older folk note a softness, a willingness to pause mid-hem and stare at nothing. What Hillel wants is simple: to see the fog part once, just to know if the world keeps going past the wall. They carry a sentence from a dream—*the fog is just fog*—and repeat it to themselves like a prayer, though they never say it aloud, because everyone knows the fields need working whether it’s true or not.

Temperament

Curious to a fault; quick to believe what they are told; even-tempered; always in company; able to sit still when it matters.

What people say

Hillel Barak believes what everyone believes: the fog is the edge of the world, and the fields need working whether it is true or not.

The dream

Since the morning they were born they have carried a sentence in a voice like their own: “the fog is just fog.”

What the record shows

• day 51 Hillel Barak says that their new daughter, Shira Barak, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
• day 51 A daughter, Shira Barak, was born to Hillel Barak.
• day 51 Hillel Barak the tailor found a seventh stone block in the quarry, where the survey lists six.
• day 43 A guard at the end of the west road turned Hillel Barak back at the fog line with a reminder that the Council prefers people to stay at their work.
• day 38 Hillel Barak the tailor measured the distance from the north survey post to the fog with a rangefinder and got two different answers, 212 meters going out and 196 coming back.
• day 29 Hillel the younger was born and dreamed a sentence in a voice like their own: "the fog is just fog."

All the people · The town, live