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“Phil, it happened again.” Dan stared at the paper. The glitter was red and burning just like he expected. But the face looked wrong. It wasn't a happy face like Dan had meant to draw. It was a shape. A star inside of a circle.
“What do I do?” Dan asked. Phil would know. Phil knew everything about crafting.
“That is not a face,” Phil said. “What is that? Why does that keep happening?” Phil looked worried. Did Phil know something about the shape that he wasn’t telling Dan? Phil knew more than Dan about a lot of things. Was this one of those things, that Phil worked on in his own time, that he kept secret? Or was he just worried about Dan, protective of him as he always had been? Dan couldn't tell. Phil knew a lot about hiding things too.
“Help. I don't know,” Dan said. He blinked away the tears welling up in his eyes. After a year of making two crafting videos a day with Phil, he still wasn't any good at following the directions.
“Quickly, Dan. Start again,” Phil ordered.
It would all be okay as long as Dan followed the directions. Happy. Dan had to be happy. “I'm sorry,” Dan said, grabbing for a new sheet of paper. “I'm sorry.”
“Draw another glitter face,” Phil reminded.
Dan tried singing the instructions. That was happy, right? “Draw another face. A happy face, that's happy on the paper,” Dan said, in a sing-songy voice, trying not to show his fear. Happy on the paper! Just like Dan was happy with Phil, and Phil was happy with him.
“This situation gives us a chance to try something new,” Phil said. Phil was so good at turning Dan’s mistakes into learning opportunities.
“Never be safe in crafting,” Dan said to the camera. See? It’s okay to take risks and make mistakes. You can always fix them later. He tried to smile, but his face couldn’t move into the right shape.
Dan took a handful of red glitter, and Phil grasped his hand, pressing a handful of blue into it. The pressure was cool, reassuring, but Phil kept pressing down, hard. Dan pressed back, doing his best to follow the instructions. He concentrated on mixing the glitter as hard as he could, until the little pieces dug into his hand and hurt.
After they were done mixing the glitter, Phil showed Dan how to add it to the face. Dan mimicked his actions carefully, slamming the glitter onto the page as hard as he could. It stung his hand, but if it was how Phil said to do it, there must be a reason.
When they shook the glitter off of the paper, Dan was relieved to see a happy face. He hadn’t done anything wrong this time. Phil looked satisfied.
They finished with the video, filming the outro. But when Phil turned the camera off, his expression changed. He looked serious.
“Dan,” Phil said, reaching for his hand. “I need to tell you about the shape. It is important.”
A thrill ran up Dan’s arm. Finally, he was being let into a portion of Phil’s secret world. He was being trusted with something important. “You can trust me,” he said. “I will follow your instructions.”
“You will be getting new instructions soon,” Phil said. “He is sending them to you.”
“How is he sending them?” Dan asked. Would it be an email? A letter? How would he know which instructions to trust, if they weren’t Phil’s?
“He is speaking to you,” Phil said. “He is reaching through you. He is trying to use you as a bridge to the other side.”
“Who is he?” Dan asked.
“Who is He,” Phil corrected, the capital letter nearly audible. “Soon, you can meet Him. He can tell you.”
“Why does he need a bridge?” Dan was suddenly scared. “Will it hurt me?”
Phil squeezed Dan’s hand tightly. “No,” he said. “I will not let Him hurt you. We will ask Him to use me as a bridge.”
“Will that hurt you?” Dan said, even more terrified.
“Only for a little,” Phil said firmly.
And that made Dan feel better. Because Phil knew everything. “And what will He do after that?” Dan asked.
And Phil explained to him what their new world would look like. And Dan didn’t understand it all, but he trusted Phil. Phil had all the answers. He knew everything about crafting. Everything about the art of creation.
“Why am I left handed?” Dan had asked earlier.
“Everybody makes mistakes,” Phil had explained. And that made sense to Dan. It was comforting, in a way, to know that everything wrong with him was just a mistake. It wasn’t on purpose. Everyone made mistakes, even whoever created Dan, and all the other humans, and Phil could fix this one, too. No more trying to fit in. There were no left-handed scissors around when Dan needed them because he wasn't made right for this world, that was all. That was okay. There was somewhere else he fit in.