Phil in SF quoted The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been …
Then he too reached for the metal and wood interlocked like spillikins beyond the threshold.
— The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville, Keanu Reeves (Page 19)
new vocabulary: spillikins
jackstraws. a game in which a set of straws or thin strips is let fall in a heap with each player in turn trying to remove one at a time without disturbing the rest.