They had been gone for five weeks now, and the cabin was starting to feel stale. The windows could not open; the air was heavy and stagnant; dust settled on every surface in a thin, grey film.

In the mornings, light flooded the room, and the whole cabin glowed like the inside of a paper lampshade. He walked early, winding his own path through the forest. The pine needles on the floor were soft; he liked to feel them give gently under his weight. The sunlight streamed through the trees.

He went fishing often. The water was clear and deep, and he would make a nest of rocks around himself on the shore. He would sit there, watching the line as it floated on the surface. If he was very early, he would see the sun breaking at the far end of the bay. He would watch it rise, waiting for the moment when it appeared as a perfect circle, sitting on the horizon. He would stay until long into the afternoon, looking out over the bay and listening to the cries of the gulls. He did not catch many fish, but it was more than enough for himself. The best way to cook them was to fry them over the fire. The skin crackled; it smelled rich and fragrant.

He kept oil and salt in a small cupboard in the cabin. There was a ring of yellow grease on the wood at the bottom where the bottle of oil stood. The logs were stored outside the cabin in a crate. He was handy with an axe and cut them himself; he had started with some of the closest trees to the cabin, but now had to walk a short distance before finding a suitable one. He knew which trees would work best. He avoided poplar; it made too much smoke.

The fire would burn through the night and in the morning the embers would still be glowing. He sometimes thought it would be warmer to sleep outside, next to the fire, than to stay in the cabin.

The lack of light did not bother him. It had not been difficult to adjust to it, since the days were tiring and there was little to do at night anyway. Sometimes he would go for a walk; the best time was the late evening when the sky was deep blue, verging on black. The fire would still be burning and was visible even from the bay, like a dim beacon. He kept a lantern for emergencies.

More often now, he struggled to sleep. He left the door open at first, but now he would stay awake, listening to the sounds outside. The trees buzzed in the wind and occasionally a twig cracked. He had a bottle of whisky in one of the cupboards, but it was nearly empty.

The rain made him drowsy. It drowned all noise; it was like a sheet of sound washing over the whole area. Rain everywhere: on the trees, the ground, the roof, the windows, the walls. He tried to make out the timbre of each one, like instruments in an orchestra.

When it rained during the day, he went outside. He caught fish more easily; he watched the rain making ripples on the surface; he saw the grey sky all above and all around him. At the cabin, he lit a fire; the crate kept the logs dry.

The mornings after it rained were always humid, and the air inside stifling. The windowpanes were covered in condensation, and the water gathered into large, tense bubbles at the bottom. Once, he touched one of them with his finger and it burst, running in a small stream down the wall. The seal around the pane felt soft; he dug at it and it flaked off, leaving a scratch on the rubber and a small grey semicircle underneath his nail.

Later, he noticed a small pool of water by the wall. A trail ran clearly enough down the side; his eyes traced it. He stood on the bed and followed it up the sloped ceiling with one finger. There were gaps between each plank of wood in the roof above him; he peered between them.

There was a small box in the cupboard in which he kept rudimentary tools. He took out a hammer and levered the wood away with the claw. He prodded the top of the ceiling; it was damp and soft; it left a dark residue on his skin. He poked, and his finger went clean through to the top shingle; it was putrid and sticky.

Outside, he clambered onto the crate and from there pulled himself up onto the roof. He lifted the damp top shingles; there was a dark patch underneath that covered several of them. Somewhere high up, the gulls called to each other.

The sky was grey but did not augur rain. He took his axe to a nearby spruce, working his way around the trunk to clear the lower branches. He made the notch and the cut quickly; the tree was not big. He felt it wobble and he pushed. The tree sank with a ripping sound, like the fabric of a curtain or a dress tearing along its hem.

By the afternoon, he had made new shingles; they were roughly fashioned. He knelt on the roof and pulled the old top shingles away completely so that the entire dark patch was visible. The bottom-most one came away too easily; it pulled with it a mass of stained wood from the one above it. The rafter underneath was damp too, and all the nail heads were rusty. He arranged the new shingles; they did not fit perfectly but would suffice. He held a nail between his lips as he set the first one, then took the nail and drove it straight through the shingle into the rafter. It lodged easily between the wet fibres. He tested it; it seemed sturdy. Above, the sky resounded with the squawks of the gulls.

He tried another nail. It went in less easily, but the wood was still soft underneath. The cries of the gulls sounded like laughter. It was difficult to concentrate.

"Ha ha ha," they screeched.

He hammered in the next nail, and the next one, and the next one after that; there were only a few left. Then the outside of his hand brushed the wood and a splinter lodged sharply in his skin. He removed it carefully; but a spot of blood oozed out of the cut and ran down his palm. A gull flew close by his ear and landed on the roof next to him; it sat there, looking up at him. It opened its beak and laughed.

"Ha ha ha! You're not having any luck, are you?" it said.

He stared at it. It was too far away for him to knock it off the roof. It would not have flown away, even if he had tried.

"Don't bother yourself with it," said the gull. "The wood will only rot through again. I'm surprised you even tried to fix it."

He sat there, silent, on the roof, staring at it.

"It's hopeless!" cried the gull. "What good is it to try and fix the roof when the entire building is going to collapse? It'll fall on you in the night. You'll be bombed! You'll be burned out! You should have put your skills to use when you had the chance. Where are the carvings you promised? Remember when you said you would make an owl? A bear? A dog? An elephant? How many trees have you cut down here?"

He grunted, and mumbled incoherently.

"What's that? There's nothing more to say. The cabin stinks. The fucking windows won't even open. Hey, why don't you light a fire, right inside it? Try and dry it out that way! And when you're done, you'll be able to build a treehouse. But that won't work, will it? It'll just come crashing down like everything else!"

He tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn't support him and he sat down again with a thud.

"See? You try to fix the roof, and you can't even stand up straight. Go on, get up! Apply yourself! Do you know why you can't? Never mind, I won't waste my breath. I don't think you'd understand even if I told you."

Panting, he pushed himself up with his elbows and his arms, then got up, his knees shaking.

"How dare you!' the gull screamed. 'How dare you challenge my authority! You whelp! You're nothing but a murderer and a common thief! They'll lock you up, you know! They'll throw you in a pit to starve! They'll make you walk the plank! You'll never see another human being as long as you live!"

A low, rasping groan came out of his mouth. He staggered back and fell off the roof.