GUN HEAD THWACK

THWACK


I've impaled my hand with a nailgun.


Finishing touches to the gazebo's walls. A spot to read insulated from the cold. Distracted for one second.


I’m screaming. No-one hears me. Not my wife not my children not anyone at all. I am alone for miles. This is what I wanted: room to work on my projects.


My hammer will save me. But my fingertips come up short. I twist and dig the nail deeper but it won’t work.


The nail has crucified me. I bend and sob, it remains. I try pulling it out but I lose consciousness, it hurts too much.


I wake up pale. Blood loss. The cold doesn’t help.


The sun sets. Wolves howl. Perhaps if I had the shotgun in the basement or the rifle or the pistol on my bedside table, but all I have is my nailgun. Perhaps I could press it up against a wolf's neck and THWACK kill it dead.


Of course I would have to be very quick and very lucky.


The wind. From inside the house it helps me sleep. Out here it is the beast's roar heard from inside its belly.


My hand throbs.


I look out at the half-finished swingset. My wife persuaded me over the phone that one of these days my children could visit. Toys were required. I treated it as another project but prioritized below the gazebo.


If it was done I wouldn't feel so bad staring at it.


I black out again. I see things in the mist like the story my wife told to the children a hedgehog out to meet his friend the bear. I think he got lost on the way. A horse was involved.


I wasn't listening.


I wake again. Out here is no hope, unlike my dreams. I have nailed my hand to the wall. It’s done. The fence the woodstove the birdhouse the swings. The cabin I refurbished. The lake I didn't make.


This is all I wanted.


Fgures in the distance. Perhaps the ghosts of my past possibly wolves drawn to feast most probably exsanguination-induced hallucinations.


I'm going to die and will never see my loved ones. This is terrible.


“Oh shit” I say.


Not enough.


“Oooh shit” I repeat.


I feel nothing.


I lose consciousness.


An angel.


Open my eyes to figures closer than before I’m bleeding manages to seem even less finished the gazebo was a bad idea in the first place the cabin is blocked or I got it wrong start again the cabin blocks the lake no the lake blocks the cabin from the gazebo or


I lose consciousness.


Night.


Figures outside gazebo.


They're calling me.


I lose consciousness.


There's no escaping here.


I take the nailgun, it falls.


Lose consciousness.


There is no escape.


I grab the nailgun. I lift it to my head.


Lost.


No escape.


Nailgun. Lift head.


Visions.


Escape.


Gun. Head.





THWACK