Congratulations Scrimshaw Tim!

You used to think that your scrimshaw business was everything, but that was before she left, before her sudden departure formed a violent, gushing wound in the center of your life that would never, could never, be filled.  That was, oh, about two days ago, and since then your business has been right in the shitter.  Turns out no one wants to buy tiny carvings of animals made from the bones of the very animals they depict from a weeping man with a tremendous beard.

But take heart!  Because tonight, after not receiving any scrimshaw commissions for two whole days, you're going to be struck by a gut wrenching urge to create, an urge that will spring from the desperation of your newfound loneliness, your newfound hopelessness, your combinant hopelessness and loneliness.  This urge will make your hands move with newfound purpose, strength and speed.  Your knife will winnow bone to shape, promising urge, firm and chaotic, sprinkling meaning into the meaningless pattern that the world has exposed you to, forced you into, impressed upon you.

You will, while under the influence of this urge, craft a piece of scrimshaw out of whalebone, a likeness of your wife, a tiny likeness, perfectly scaled, illustrative of her every feature and flaw.  It will exude a kind of need and want, mixed with affection, mixed with the memory of having had something, that will affect anyone who touches the reshaped piece of bone that you'll have crafted.  So great will the impact of your emotion be that the ghost of the whale murdered to get the bone for the scrimshaw you carved will, in whale hell, find a sudden burst of peace and happiness to break the torment of unlife.  This whale ghost will understand that his death had a purpose: to create this great work of art that can be held in the palm of one's hand, that feels delicate, constantly verging on breaking, but is, in fact, as solid as anything one might find.

You'll place the piece in your storefront the next day.  Customers will pour in with offers to purchase the scrimshaw figurine of your wife.  You'll refuse all of them, even the exceedingly wealthy man, who will offer you the value of your store ten times over in exchange for the figurine.  But you will get several commissions out of the foot traffic, which means your business will be back on track, thank god.

Congratulations Scrimshaw Tim!