In the sixth night of Natsume Soseki’s Ten Nights’ Dreams, Unkei the Sculptor is carving a Nio, a temple guardian, in front of spectators. Unkei’s sculpting technique is diffident, offhand, unconcerned, yet exquisitely confident. The dreamer wonders how Unkei does this, and is told that Unkei merely digs out the Nio that’s been buried all along in the wood. It’s like digging stones out of the ground, another onlooker says. He cannot make a mistake.
And so what, I wonder, might be hidden inside a page? Or inside this screen? Inside your screen?
What does my Nio look like? What does yours?
What if my Nio is simply the stones themselves? Virtual stones, at that. Virtual stones, for the metaphorical stones, for the metaphysical Nio.
But I like the stones.
I’ll make a small pile of them here. Like gold new potatoes.
And then later I’ll cook them with rasins and cumin and ginger and snap peas and cinnamon.
