In the second week of May, we put a small lamp in the car and drove out to the lake. Her name is Selene. She had come off the bench only days before, one of the first castings, with a rim that is not yet true and a surface that still carries the faint warmth of the foundry. A lamp's first evening, we think, should not be spent under strangers' lights. So we gave her ours, and the water. This is the first episode of her story; we intend to tell it as it unfolds, in instalments, mistakes included.

One evening on the lake

The wind went down around nine. We set Selene on the low stone wall at the edge of the water, where the path turns, and switched her on. What she made was small: a soft moon on the stone, a ring of pale warmth no wider than an open book. Around her the lake kept darkening, the last light went off the water in stages, and the moths arrived to take an interest. Her circle was not quite even. The flawed rim threw a slightly heavier shadow on one side, and we watched it for a long time before deciding to leave it exactly as it was.

A lamp should spend one evening outdoors, so she knows what the dark is really like.

We told a few people, and then a few more, and the first letters arrived within the week. Some asked when Selene will be available. One man wrote that he has walked the same shore for thirty years and would like to think a lamp has finally seen it properly. We will answer every letter in time; the workshop keeps its own hours.

What comes next is quieter. The rim will be corrected, more castings will follow, and some of them will fail. We will write all of it down. Episode two is already on the bench.