Carpenter

Seth Nir

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

Seth Nir is sixteen and already has a carpenter’s hands—broad, scarred, quick to test a joint before trusting it. At work, they plane a board with their head tilted, as if listening to the grain, and they can sit motionless for an hour over a stubborn dovetail, jaw set, until the fit is right. But the moment the tool is down, they are restless, always trailing after someone, arguing about what they saw at the fog line or what the survey missed. The town calls them stubborn, and not kindly. What Seth wants is to prove the instruments wrong, or the measurements, or the guards—anything that would make the sentence from their birth dream feel true. They do not believe it, not yet, but they carry it like a splinter under the skin: *the fog is just fog*.

Temperament

Curious when something is in front of them; slow to believe anyone; hot-tempered; always in company; able to sit still when it matters.

What people say

Seth Nir 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 Seth Nir says that their new daughter, Shira Nir, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
• day 51 A daughter, Shira Nir, was born to Seth Nir.
• day 43 Seth Nir and Ophir Sharon sat a long while at the plaza comparing what they had seen. They talked about what they had each measured, and whether the instruments could be wrong. They did not agree.
• day 38 A guard at the end of the south road turned Seth Nir back at the fog line with a reminder that the Council prefers people to stay at their work.
• day 33 Seth Nir the carpenter found a seventh stone block in the quarry, where the survey lists six.
• day 32 Seth Nir and Ariel Kedem talked a long while at the square.
• day 29 Seth was born and dreamed a sentence in a voice like their own: "the fog is just fog."

All the people · The town, live