A person of Neshiyah
Phineas Tamir, driver
Driver
Phineas Tamir
Driver, about 26 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.
Phineas Tamir drives the town’s flatbed with the window rolled down, elbow out, squinting at the fog line as if it owes them money. They are lean, quick-handed, with a scar on one knuckle from the square fight with Fernando and a habit of tapping two fingers on the wheel when the engine idles. Curious to a fault, they’ve been known to stop mid-route to poke a strange weed or watch a bird too long, but when a load needs hauling, they go still and steady, all patience. Since birth they’ve carried a dream-sentence—*the fog is just fog*—and they don’t tell it, because who’d believe it? Town sees them as friendly but prickly, the kind who’ll share a smoke and then argue about nothing. What they want is to hold the seed from day 44 up to the light one more time and know if it was real.
I counted the seventh block twice before and it checked out, but I just remembered I never compared my drawings to the survey list itself—only to what I remembered of it.
I keep thinking about that seventh stone block in the quarry—the survey says six, but I've counted seven twice now, and I need to see it again with my own eyes to be sure I'm not just tired.
Temperament
Curious to a fault; slow to believe anyone; hot-tempered; friendly enough; able to sit still when it matters.
What people say
People say Phineas Tamir has started asking questions about the fog that the Council would rather not hear.
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 Phineas Tamir decided to find Meir Golan: Meir, I need to see the actual survey list for the quarry. I counted seven blocks at the bottom face and measured the seventh, but I only compared against my memory of six. Can you bring the survey or show me where it's kept?
- day 51 Phineas Tamir went to the orchard at the east edge to test it: Go to the quarry with a tape measure and a notepad, count the stone blocks at the bottom face one by one, measure the seventh block's dimensions and position relative to the others, and write down the numbers to compare with the survey list I remember. Nothing unusual. Everything measured the way it should.
- day 50 Phineas Tamir decided to go to the orchard at the east edge: Go to the quarry with a tape measure and a notepad, count the stone blocks at the bottom face one by one, measure the seventh block's dimensions and position relative to the others, and write down the numbers to compare with the survey list I remember.
- day 50 Phineas Tamir the driver dropped a stone into the old well and timed the splash on a phone: a full second late.
- day 48 Phineas Tamir the driver found a seventh stone block in the quarry, where the survey lists six.
- day 46 Phineas Tamir the driver found a seventh stone block in the quarry, where the survey lists six.
- day 44 Phineas Tamir the driver was handed a seed a bird carried out of the fog, from no plant in the town's reference list.
- day 38 Phineas Tamir and Fernando came to blows at the square over nothing much.
- day 34 Phineas Tamir sat by the Lethe doing nothing and came back quietly sure that this place was made on purpose by someone who is not against us.
- day 29 Zipporah and Phineas talked a long while at the mill.
- day 26 Phineas was born and dreamed a sentence in a voice like their own: "the fog is just fog."