[...brother in hands, held in the hands, of one million bending bones...]

I.

My brother Calum, who is only 24, has worked his way up to being better than most professional classical bass players in the 14 years he has been playing. I could go into detail about his various successes within the musical profession, but all that needs to be said is that he is one of those gifted genius types that are a parent's blessing and a sibling's curse.

But envy aside, his music has often unknowingly kept me company in the middle of the night as he has recited cello sonatas that he has learned to mentally transcribe. And might I mention that anyone who has ever lived in a house with a musician knows that music is more beautiful when it creeps through the walls and leaks into the room in which you are dwelling. He has also on occasion been found within the foliage of Pender Island, and to the neighbouring residents' delight, the forest has resonated with his music, carrying the far-stretching frequencies within miles of where him and his bass stood.

However, perhaps like many gifted people, playing double-bass is not actually his passion. Rather, it seems that at the moment his true love is sawing pieces of wood. Not for anything particularly--shall we say--grande; just sawing wood, down the middle, with a Japanese saw. At the moment he is disassembling an old bed frame, and then proceeding to saw the panels of wood down the middle to make two pieces of wood. Out of these pieces of wood he intends to make a box. The other day after an evening of sawing down the middle of pieces of wood, he wiped the sweat from his brow and grumbled triumphantly, "life is good." Ahhh.

II.

Now, I am just desperate to add in somewhere that among many of Calum's peculiarities, of which there are many, is his passionate hatred of acronyms. Acronyms such as "WWOOF," which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or as it's more commonly translated, Willing Workers on Organic Farms. The idea of a perfectly dignified organization naming themselves after the sound of a dog barking is just positively enraging to my brother. However I, thinking that passionately hating acronyms is such a delightful quirk, decided that if I should ever write a book of fiction, I would have to give one of my characters such a quirk. I've only ever decided to remember two characteristics for my potential future novel, and this is without question the better one.