The Finishing Touch
The motion makes him swallow involuntarily, and he feels the nails go down his throat.
The two men (one fat, one skinny) are trying to build a house for a wealthy man in an empty field across the street from a sanitarium. They have a foundation laid and a skeletal framework built atop it. No doors in the doorways, no windows in the window frames, just a few plywood walls. They knock over a stack of lumber and it falls with a clatter. On the lawn in front of the sanitarium is a large sign with "QUIET, PLEASE" painted on it in block capitals. A woman in a nurse's uniform is standing next to it glaring at the men across the road. The fat man tells the skinny man to watch where he's going and the skinny man accidentally hits him in the head with the plank he's carrying when he turns around to listen. The fat man yelps. The nurse sees a police officer walking by. She gets his attention, pointing to the sign and then to the two men.
"Can't you do something?"
The police officer walks over to the two men. They've stopped working to argue with each other. They're taking turns stepping on each other's toes. The police officer taps the fat man on the shoulder. Both men, startled, stop what they're doing and give him their full attention. He points to the sign in front of the sanitarium.
"If you have to make a noise, make it quietly."
The two men shush each other. They go inside the skeleton of the house. There's a pile of nails on the floor. The fat man, his vision blocked by a large crate he's carrying, steps on them. He jumps with surprise, dropping the crate and clutching his foot. He looks, and sees a dozen long nails sticking out of the sole of his shoe. He opens his mouth to yell in pain, but before he can the skinny man shushes him. The nurse is still standing there, across the street. The fat man swallows his pain and sits down on the crate. It snaps under his weight and he falls in. There's nothing inside. Resignedly, not trying to dislodge himself, the fat man reaches forward and starts pulling nails out of his foot. The skinny man, bemused, scratches his head. Meanwhile, the police officer is walking around outside. He sees the skinny man come out from behind the side of the house carrying a wooden board on his shoulder. The board is very long, absurdly long even. As he watches, it continues to appear from behind the house like tape being pulled from a ticker, bobbing up and down, until finally the skinny man appears once again, carrying the other end. The police officer is so startled he leaps backwards and falls directly into a basin of wet glue sitting on the ground behind him. It splashes up around him, covering his face and uniform in sticky white paste, and then he can't get up anymore.
Meanwhile, inside, the fat man puts a handful of nails in his mouth to carry outside. When he steps out the door, the crate he had been using as a makeshift step has been moved away, and he falls forward into the dirt. The motion makes him swallow involuntarily, and he feels the nails go down his throat. He shakes his head, then replaces the crate and climbs back inside. Again, he puts a handful of nails in his mouth. Outside, the skinny man is trying to install a window in the frame by the door, but it's too high up. Seeing the crate, he takes it and moves it over to beneath the window. The fat man steps out the door again, and again the step he expects is not there. He falls forward again, swallows involuntarily again, and feels the nails go down his throat again. He's all filled up with nails. He blows his nose and finds a nail in the handkerchief. The skinny man watches silently. They both go inside the house and a huge light surrounds them.
The light shines on the sanitarium across the street. A man in pajamas and a nightcap opens a window on a high floor of the building and, leaning out, coughs up a thick globule of phlegm directly onto the nurse's head, several stories below. He pulls the blind down angrily and goes back to bed, while the nurse stands frozen in horror and consternation below.