Morning was on the verge of making an appearance.

Night was reluctantly handing over the keys. Not quite trusting the break of day to not quite break everything that had been set in place.

A kind of quiet peace.

A truce.

It was not that he'd grown spiteful intentionally. He'd been shaped this way.

Back in the woodland, CTC, well, he'd been a bit of a grump, sure. Stood still, reaching for the eternal light. Perpetual growth while not moving at all. He'd had a run in with some rowdy woodpeckers and had to see off a bothersome band of beavers, yes, but a thwack to the upside of the head did for them.

He could do nothing about the loggers, however. Cut down in his prime. Shorn of his branches, stripped of bark. He hit the articulated-lorry bed hard, bruised but not broken.

Even at the saw mill, they could not crush his spirit.

Sanded and shaped, trimmed and varnished. Lacquered and buffed. Nails, well and truly screwed. Bent out of shaped. Contorted into an unrecognisable version of himself. A price tag and Allen keys. A catalogue and a commercial enterprise.

It was dark outside still. Colder than expected too.

It was darker in his non-existent wooden heart. CTC identified with Oz's Tin Man.

Now that was a guy who should be on more posters.

The light from a street lamp drifted lazily across the apartment.

Broken by shades, like a sepia Zebra Crossing, the dimness compounded the morning shuffler's dazed migration from bed to toilet, to hall, to kitchen.

CTC waited for his favourite part of the day. This three-second moment was everything and nothing.

Yawning, the shuffler, lurched toward toasted bread and liquefied coffee beans.

Karen always, ALWAYS, forgot to turn the light on.

Without fail.

CTC grinned, as much as a coffee table can grin.

Here comes a big toe.