Story Spotlight (Volume IV): An Unreasonable Amount Of Duct Tape
This
is the final Story Spotlight from Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume IV,
which feels exactly right for a story about endings that refuse to stay ended.
Because “An Unreasonable Amount of Duct Tape” begins after the worst thing has already happened.
The ship has broken.
The adults are gone.
The promised future has cracked open like a dropped bowl.
And inside the ruined body of the CS Vagabond, a group of children wake into a world made of failing air, rationed water, bad wiring, pain, fear, and the sort of silence that has far too many teeth.
At the centre of it all is Angitu, thirteen years old, injured, terrified, grieving, and abruptly responsible in a way no child should ever have to be.
Naturally, she gets on with it.
Not because she is fearless.
Not because she has been chosen by destiny, which has a terrible habit of showing up after the plumbing fails.
But because there are younger children watching her. Because someone has to check the filters. Because panic is not, despite its enthusiasm, a practical survival strategy.
This is not a grand heroic tale in the usual shiny sense.
It is better than that.
It is a story about building shelter inside ruin. About humour inside grief. About turning a nursery into headquarters, a broken ship into a second home, and duct tape into a minor spiritual discipline.
At its heart, this is not really a story about the crash.
It is about what people make after the crash. What they carry. What they repair. What they refuse to abandon. And how, when one house dies, human beings begin the painful, practical, holy work of making another.
Because “An Unreasonable Amount of Duct Tape” begins after the worst thing has already happened.
The ship has broken.
The adults are gone.
The promised future has cracked open like a dropped bowl.
And inside the ruined body of the CS Vagabond, a group of children wake into a world made of failing air, rationed water, bad wiring, pain, fear, and the sort of silence that has far too many teeth.
At the centre of it all is Angitu, thirteen years old, injured, terrified, grieving, and abruptly responsible in a way no child should ever have to be.
Naturally, she gets on with it.
Not because she is fearless.
Not because she has been chosen by destiny, which has a terrible habit of showing up after the plumbing fails.
But because there are younger children watching her. Because someone has to check the filters. Because panic is not, despite its enthusiasm, a practical survival strategy.
This is not a grand heroic tale in the usual shiny sense.
It is better than that.
It is a story about building shelter inside ruin. About humour inside grief. About turning a nursery into headquarters, a broken ship into a second home, and duct tape into a minor spiritual discipline.
At its heart, this is not really a story about the crash.
It is about what people make after the crash. What they carry. What they repair. What they refuse to abandon. And how, when one house dies, human beings begin the painful, practical, holy work of making another.
Not polished speeches.
Not easy heroics with clean faces and dramatic lighting.
A kettle hiss.
A whiteboard list.
A hand-crank generator.
A wounded boy making jokes through pain.
A girl deciding, again and again, that fear does not get to be the only thing in charge.
The Old Truth in the Wreckage
Not easy heroics with clean faces and dramatic lighting.
A kettle hiss.
A whiteboard list.
A hand-crank generator.
A wounded boy making jokes through pain.
A girl deciding, again and again, that fear does not get to be the only thing in charge.
The Old Truth in the Wreckage
Whakataukī: “Ka mate te kāinga tahi,
ka ora te kāinga rua.”
Translation: “When one house dies, a second lives.”
Historically, it speaks of houses or families merging after misfortune — of continuation after loss, of people forming a new structure when the old one can no longer hold them.
It does not insult grief by pretending everything is fine.
It does not say the first house was disposable.
It does not say the second house cures the wound.
It simply insists that destruction is not always allowed the final word.
That is why it belongs so deeply to Angitu’s story.
The CS Vagabond was supposed to be a vessel, a promise, a path toward somewhere else. After the disaster, it becomes something stranger: a tomb, a shelter, a puzzle box, a broken parent, a dangerous home with exposed wires and terrible manners.
The first kāinga has died.
But among the children, in the routines they build and the jokes they cling to and the hands they blister at the crank, a second begins to live.
Not prettily.
Not easily.
But truly.
Translation: “When one house dies, a second lives.”
Historically, it speaks of houses or families merging after misfortune — of continuation after loss, of people forming a new structure when the old one can no longer hold them.
It does not insult grief by pretending everything is fine.
It does not say the first house was disposable.
It does not say the second house cures the wound.
It simply insists that destruction is not always allowed the final word.
That is why it belongs so deeply to Angitu’s story.
The CS Vagabond was supposed to be a vessel, a promise, a path toward somewhere else. After the disaster, it becomes something stranger: a tomb, a shelter, a puzzle box, a broken parent, a dangerous home with exposed wires and terrible manners.
The first kāinga has died.
But among the children, in the routines they build and the jokes they cling to and the hands they blister at the crank, a second begins to live.
Not prettily.
Not easily.
But truly.
Beneath
the Broken Bulkheads
On
the surface, this is a story about a shipwreck in space, a group of surviving
children, and two teenagers trying to hold together air, water, power,
communication, and morale with almost nothing.
That is the visible machinery.
Underneath, it is about grief, leadership, found whānau, responsibility, exhaustion, terror, and the tiny practical acts by which people keep each other from falling all the way apart.
Angitu is not a polished young hero.
She is hurt. Frightened. Furious in places. Exhausted in others. Too young for the weight that has landed on her and too stubborn to let it crush everyone else as well.
That matters.
Because survival is rarely elegant. It is not all noble music and meaningful staring into the middle distance. Sometimes survival is arguing with a water filter. Sometimes it is lying gently to a frightened child because the full truth would be cruelty. Sometimes it is deciding whether a boy in pain gets to keep joking because the jokes are the only scaffolding he has left.
And sometimes survival is duct tape.
An unreasonable amount of it.
This story understands that leadership in crisis is not the same as confidence. Often, leadership is just movement while afraid. One more list. One more check. One more cup of something warm. One more instruction spoken clearly enough that no one hears the tremor underneath.
Angitu does not become important because she knows what to do.
She becomes important because she keeps doing the next thing.
That is much harder.
That is the visible machinery.
Underneath, it is about grief, leadership, found whānau, responsibility, exhaustion, terror, and the tiny practical acts by which people keep each other from falling all the way apart.
Angitu is not a polished young hero.
She is hurt. Frightened. Furious in places. Exhausted in others. Too young for the weight that has landed on her and too stubborn to let it crush everyone else as well.
That matters.
Because survival is rarely elegant. It is not all noble music and meaningful staring into the middle distance. Sometimes survival is arguing with a water filter. Sometimes it is lying gently to a frightened child because the full truth would be cruelty. Sometimes it is deciding whether a boy in pain gets to keep joking because the jokes are the only scaffolding he has left.
And sometimes survival is duct tape.
An unreasonable amount of it.
This story understands that leadership in crisis is not the same as confidence. Often, leadership is just movement while afraid. One more list. One more check. One more cup of something warm. One more instruction spoken clearly enough that no one hears the tremor underneath.
Angitu does not become important because she knows what to do.
She becomes important because she keeps doing the next thing.
That is much harder.
How
a Second House Gets Built
The
emotional shape of this story is made from a brutal contrast: devastation on
one side, routine on the other.
The adults are gone. The ship is broken. The future has lost its official brochure.
Everything smells metaphorically of smoke, fear, and somebody else’s terrible planning.
And yet, piece by piece, Angitu and Jansson begin to build.
A cart for an injured friend.
A nursery turned refuge.
A whiteboard list.
A working filter.
A kettle, because civilisation is not dead while someone is still trying to make tea.
Shifts at the crank handle.
Rules for the younger children.
Small jokes wedged into the cracks before panic can get comfortable.
That is the second house.
Not walls and roof. Not architecture.
Relationship. A second house is the place where someone says, “Drink this.”
Where someone else says, “You rest. I’ll take over.”
Where the frightened are given jobs small enough to manage and important enough to matter.
Where grief is not solved, but held.
Where a child learns that home is sometimes not the structure that survives, but the people who keep choosing one another after it falls.
The story honours that beautifully.
Not invulnerability.
Not grandeur.
Competence under grief. Care under pressure. The ancient human habit of making shelter out of whatever is left in the cupboard.
And, ideally, labelling the cupboard before someone panics and eats the medical gauze.
The adults are gone. The ship is broken. The future has lost its official brochure.
Everything smells metaphorically of smoke, fear, and somebody else’s terrible planning.
And yet, piece by piece, Angitu and Jansson begin to build.
A cart for an injured friend.
A nursery turned refuge.
A whiteboard list.
A working filter.
A kettle, because civilisation is not dead while someone is still trying to make tea.
Shifts at the crank handle.
Rules for the younger children.
Small jokes wedged into the cracks before panic can get comfortable.
That is the second house.
Not walls and roof. Not architecture.
Relationship. A second house is the place where someone says, “Drink this.”
Where someone else says, “You rest. I’ll take over.”
Where the frightened are given jobs small enough to manage and important enough to matter.
Where grief is not solved, but held.
Where a child learns that home is sometimes not the structure that survives, but the people who keep choosing one another after it falls.
The story honours that beautifully.
Not invulnerability.
Not grandeur.
Competence under grief. Care under pressure. The ancient human habit of making shelter out of whatever is left in the cupboard.
And, ideally, labelling the cupboard before someone panics and eats the medical gauze.
The
Harder Truth
The second house is not a replacement.
That is the ache under the whole story.
Angitu still wants her mother.
Jansson still wants the dead back.
The younger children still want the world to make sense in the old way, the way it did before adults became absence and the ship became danger.
The new shelter does not erase that.
It is built around the absence.
That is what makes the story honest. It does not commit the sentimental crime of suggesting that resilience means being magically all right. Resilience here is much rougher than that. It has blood on its sleeve and no time to cry until later. It knows that grief can sit in the room while the work continues.
Sometimes the most loving thing a person can do is fix the water supply while their heart is breaking.
That is not glamorous.
It is magnificent.
Why
This One Belongs in Volume IV
If
Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume IV is about memory, endurance,
consequence, and the fragile stubbornness of human beings under pressure, then “An
Unreasonable Amount of Duct Tape” belongs here like a handprint on a sealed
hatch.
This is a story about what happens after catastrophe, when survival stops being a grand idea and becomes immediate, bodily, and rude.
Can we breathe?
Can we drink?
Can we stay warm?
Can we keep the small ones calm?
Can we make it through one more hour without fear becoming captain?
And still, care endures.
Humour endures.
Routine endures.
Community endures.
The ridiculous human need to make tea in the ruins endures, and frankly, thank heavens for that.
That is where the whakataukī cuts deepest.
The world of the story is full of urgent things: failing filters, broken bulkheads, smoke, silence, distance, hunger, injury, exhaustion. All of them matter. All of them shout.
But the proverb asks the quieter question underneath:
What kind of house are these children building inside the wreckage?
Not whether they can recreate what was lost. They cannot. Not whether the first house mattered. It did. It always will.
The question is whether the second house can live.
Whether it can be made from labour, tenderness, rules, jokes, stubbornness, and hands that keep reaching for the next necessary thing.
This is a story about what happens after catastrophe, when survival stops being a grand idea and becomes immediate, bodily, and rude.
Can we breathe?
Can we drink?
Can we stay warm?
Can we keep the small ones calm?
Can we make it through one more hour without fear becoming captain?
And still, care endures.
Humour endures.
Routine endures.
Community endures.
The ridiculous human need to make tea in the ruins endures, and frankly, thank heavens for that.
That is where the whakataukī cuts deepest.
The world of the story is full of urgent things: failing filters, broken bulkheads, smoke, silence, distance, hunger, injury, exhaustion. All of them matter. All of them shout.
But the proverb asks the quieter question underneath:
What kind of house are these children building inside the wreckage?
Not whether they can recreate what was lost. They cannot. Not whether the first house mattered. It did. It always will.
The question is whether the second house can live.
Whether it can be made from labour, tenderness, rules, jokes, stubbornness, and hands that keep reaching for the next necessary thing.
Warmth,
Wit, and Grit
For
all its sorrow and danger, this story is not bleak.
It has warmth tucked under the floor panels. It has grit in its palms. It has humour that arrives wearing a bandage and pretending everything is completely under control.
The hot water unit hisses like an offended cat.
Jansson is compared to an injured king, then demoted to a kūmara, then possibly a potato, which feels like a realistic trajectory in any serious medical situation.
The children ask questions at the worst possible moments because children have a supernatural gift for locating the exact worst possible moment and placing a question gently on top of it.
“The air is being mean again” is funny because it is true.
The hand-crank generator is absurd and life-saving, which is how many important things behave in emergencies.
And the warning that people may “explode probably” has exactly the right flavour of exhausted practicality. Not scientifically reassuring, perhaps, but emotionally honest.
The humour here does not soften the story’s teeth.
It keeps the jaw from locking.
That matters. People do not survive terrible things by becoming solemn statues. They complain. They tease. They make signs. They name the absurdity. They demote one another from king to vegetable. They get on with it because the alternative is letting despair arrange the furniture.
Humour is not a distraction from seriousness.
It is one of the ways seriousness stays bearable.
It has warmth tucked under the floor panels. It has grit in its palms. It has humour that arrives wearing a bandage and pretending everything is completely under control.
The hot water unit hisses like an offended cat.
Jansson is compared to an injured king, then demoted to a kūmara, then possibly a potato, which feels like a realistic trajectory in any serious medical situation.
The children ask questions at the worst possible moments because children have a supernatural gift for locating the exact worst possible moment and placing a question gently on top of it.
“The air is being mean again” is funny because it is true.
The hand-crank generator is absurd and life-saving, which is how many important things behave in emergencies.
And the warning that people may “explode probably” has exactly the right flavour of exhausted practicality. Not scientifically reassuring, perhaps, but emotionally honest.
The humour here does not soften the story’s teeth.
It keeps the jaw from locking.
That matters. People do not survive terrible things by becoming solemn statues. They complain. They tease. They make signs. They name the absurdity. They demote one another from king to vegetable. They get on with it because the alternative is letting despair arrange the furniture.
Humour is not a distraction from seriousness.
It is one of the ways seriousness stays bearable.
The
Image That Stays
The image that stays with me is the nursery turned refuge.
There is something quietly devastating about that.
A nursery should be a place of softness, routine, sleep, little socks, dropped toys, and the particular chaos of small children who have recently discovered volume.
Here, it becomes headquarters.
Not because anyone planned it.
Not because it is ideal.
Because it is there, and because the children need somewhere to gather, and because survival often begins by choosing the least-broken place and saying, “This will do.”
That is the story in miniature.
The first house is dead.
The second house begins with what remains.
A whiteboard.
A crank handle.
A kettle.
A list.
A joke.
A child trying to sound older than she is.
Another child deciding to trust her.
No grand architecture.
Just the beginning of a home.
The image that stays with me is the nursery turned refuge.
There is something quietly devastating about that.
A nursery should be a place of softness, routine, sleep, little socks, dropped toys, and the particular chaos of small children who have recently discovered volume.
Here, it becomes headquarters.
Not because anyone planned it.
Not because it is ideal.
Because it is there, and because the children need somewhere to gather, and because survival often begins by choosing the least-broken place and saying, “This will do.”
That is the story in miniature.
The first house is dead.
The second house begins with what remains.
A whiteboard.
A crank handle.
A kettle.
A list.
A joke.
A child trying to sound older than she is.
Another child deciding to trust her.
No grand architecture.
Just the beginning of a home.
Why
I Love This One
What
I love most about “An Unreasonable Amount of Duct Tape” is that it takes
an old truth and sets it inside disaster without making disaster noble.
The crash is awful. The loss is awful. The fear is real.
The children should not have to be brave.
And yet the story finds something luminous in what happens next.
Not spectacle.
But a nursery turned refuge.
A group of children kept alive by routine, stubbornness, blistered hands, shared labour, and a truly unreasonable amount of improvised hope.
That is the wisdom here.
When one house dies, a second may live.
Not because the first did not matter.
Because it did.
Because love does not end when the walls come down. It changes shape. It becomes work. It becomes a roster. It becomes a cup of warm water passed from hand to hand. It becomes someone checking the tape one more time.
In a world too often broken by failure, indifference, and systems that collapse exactly when they are most needed, this story feels worth holding close.
A small house built in the wreckage.
A second light.
A stubborn little yes.
This is the final Story Spotlight from Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume IV, but the full collection is waiting beyond these glimpses.
To read “An Unreasonable Amount of Duct Tape” in full — along with the other stories gathered inside the volume — you can visit my Amazon page and step into the whole book there.
The crash is awful. The loss is awful. The fear is real.
The children should not have to be brave.
And yet the story finds something luminous in what happens next.
Not spectacle.
But a nursery turned refuge.
A group of children kept alive by routine, stubbornness, blistered hands, shared labour, and a truly unreasonable amount of improvised hope.
That is the wisdom here.
When one house dies, a second may live.
Not because the first did not matter.
Because it did.
Because love does not end when the walls come down. It changes shape. It becomes work. It becomes a roster. It becomes a cup of warm water passed from hand to hand. It becomes someone checking the tape one more time.
In a world too often broken by failure, indifference, and systems that collapse exactly when they are most needed, this story feels worth holding close.
A small house built in the wreckage.
A second light.
A stubborn little yes.
This is the final Story Spotlight from Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume IV, but the full collection is waiting beyond these glimpses.
To read “An Unreasonable Amount of Duct Tape” in full — along with the other stories gathered inside the volume — you can visit my Amazon page and step into the whole book there.
— Rebecca
Rebecca Vardy on Amazon
Stories, stars, strange futures, and a little mischief between the galaxies.
Rebecca Among the Stars
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