The brief was short. A leather that did not smell like a car interior, and a fruit sharp enough to survive underneath it.The first submission came back in three weeks. It was correct and it was boring. The leather sat where leather usually sits, at the base, doing what it does. The passionfruit lasted eleven minutes.What followed was thirty-eight more.Most of the changes were small enough that describing them sounds absurd. A fraction of a percent on the cypriol. A different supplier for the same material, because the first one’s batch carried a green edge that pulled the whole thing herbal. Twice we went backwards and reinstated a version from a month earlier.The one that shipped is number thirty-nine. It differs from thirty-seven in a way most people will never consciously register, and that is more or less the point. The work is not visible. It is only audible in the fact that the fruit is still there at the half hour, when it has no business being there.We keep the rejected submissions. They are in a drawer, labelled and dated, and nobody will ever smell them again.