A house to build

Rough grinding edges slightly undulated and slipped against each other. White gritty powder fell out into the baking air as the thin layer upon the wood ground itself away. The hard edges of the planks indented themselves upon worn and tanned skin as they jounced within the tasked man's grasp. Perditious nails protruding from the swollen planks pressed into a hairy salt-crusted forearm.

The tendons bearing the weight of the wood stack jutted from the arms which claimed them. Hands calloused and torn wrapped their progenous appendages tightly beneath the bottom-most plank in it's silent struggle against gravity.

Muscles, stretched along the length of the man's bared back, pulsed out from his skin as he readjusted his load. Travail tested legs shuffled his tremulous feet through the white powdry sand casting puffs of dry fairy dust into the untouched dunes about him. His feet moved into a shadow painted patch of sand and then as suddenly onto greened wildgrass.

His wild worried eyes flashed quickly up to the tree hanging over his head and then looked back out from the way he had come. His quick shuffle step halted and he turned his frame about. The rigid muscles within his wrinkled neck bobbed and contorted as he instictually scoured the wide expanse before him. After a quick moment the thinning hair upon his head was tossed about and he scurried away with his bundle.

The smell of greenery untouched enswathed him as he pressed through thick boughs of tangling fronds. White spheres held loosely into his worn eye sockets twitched and scanned the jungle depths for danger belying ahead. They flicked upwards to the azure heavens and back to the ground worriedly.
Fingers calloused and cracked wrapped themselves over the rude surface of a corroded nail. His shaky grasp quickly brought the nail in contact with a board propped horizonally against the skewed frame of a wall. With a hurried twitching he scratched the nail abruptly to it's destined mark.

His fear-numbed fingers barely held the grasp of the metal sliver as he shot his eyes about in groping search of the mallet. With knotted hair dancing his head turned eratically to peer over the ground to the sides and behind him. As he darted his head thus the nail held twixt his fingers fumbled, lost it's mark, and dropped to the ground. The magic sound heard by his tensed gaping eyes pulled his frame facing frontward sniffing out the source of the sound.

Upon the scraped rock between his knees was the nail propped upon the handle of the mallet. His thick hand, without thinking snatched the hammer into the air prepared to strike. It dropped momentarily until in baffling realization he realized the absence of it's target. With a sharp clack the metal crown of the mallet met the rock as his frame dopped and bent to procure the missing nail.

Since rolled beneath his swollen knees mid caked mud and shale the nail was stolen into his rude hands once more. It was raised to it's mark a second time and dancing held mid shaking fingers as the ponderous mallet was raised above it. Then with worried dismay he saw the nail held sharp point aimed to him and his hand twitched momentarily. His hand with the nail fumbled to reverse it's orientation as his other arm with orders came crashing down with heavy iron mallet head upon his confused hand.

The mallet stinging dropped to the rock as did the nail while he jerked back his hands trailing vermillion blood. His concered gaze besought the source of pain and his lip jammed itself between stained teeth. The middle finger oozed blood from within the shattered fingernail and twitched with it's own life.

His ragged breathing quickened suddenly and his eyes took on a look of surprise. From a far-distant place upon the horizon came a dull thud and crash which instantly brought the man to his feet panic looking to the sky from whence the sound echoed. He entire frame tensed and shook as his blood-shot eyes dart back and forth through squinted lids. His injured hand swollen with pain shook at his side forgotten as he trained his ears on whatever sound he could detect.

In the distance another barely audible crash resonated and cracked. At this he dropped crashing to his knees facing the wood and dropped tools. With panic ensued instinct sureness he pulled the nail to it's place again and brought the hammer down upon it's head. It sunk deep into the water swollen wood and with a second rapid blow struck into the second board. The third strike skewed the nail to the side shooting a hasty spark into the hair on his arm.

His hand again darted to find a second nail. Blood streaked through the shale and dust as his hand rested upon the nail. He winced only slightly as the tip of the nail jabbed into his shattered fingernail. An insane panic of deathly urgency had crept into his eyes as they mindlessly darted over his work.

He placed the nail near the first's home and pulled the ponderous hammer into the air. The rippling muscles in his sore back herniated from the skin as he reared his frame backwards, mallet head aloft. From within his arm, muscle and tendon knotted and bulged as the head was brought slamming into the nail head. It sunk throught the first board and partially into the second under the first blow's pressure. The second blow put the nail head flush with the board.

As his driven arms mechanically procured a board from behind him with not the slightest pause or glance images flashed and faded into reality before him...
He felt the hard boards beneath him. The gentle rolling motion tipped his head into the edge board of the small cot. The wood smelled of salt and rotting fish. The cot was an old fish bin

Light had barely begun to spill into the beams of the sky from the horizons and the sounds of people stirring around him brought him back into the world once more. He arched his back and breathed a deep breath of the chilled salty sea air.

The sweet air of freedom swarmed about him washing him of all problems. Swinging his legs out over the edge of the cot he looked once more at his new life. The dark brown and salt-stained boards of the inside of the narrow hallway were riddled with swollen rusted nails.

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