He punched big spikes into the ground. Big, strong iron nails, deep into the soil, so the ground would stay put. He knew it would peel off, someday, if he didn’t. It would peel off for good, leaving us all on a hot rock to die.
He knew if he didn’t do it, no one would. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to do it. He had to.
One day two men came by.
-Why do you punch spikes into the ground? they asked.
-To keep the surface from peeling off.
They laughed.
-Haha! You’re funny, they said, shaking their heads.
Another day he told a young girl. She looked at him as if he was crazy, almost running away.
No one believed him. He decided he would never tell anyone ever again. From now on he told people he punched spikes into the ground for fun. They still laughed, but now he could laugh with them. It was less hurtful that way, but he was worried. He was afraid the job was too big for one man alone.
He was saving the world, and no one knew. Without him they would all be doomed.
Fictionspawn 
Decades ago, cartoonist Vaughn Bodē created a small story wherein one of his bizarre yet endearing lizard creatures encountered the other, the second clinging to a boulder with all its might. The first one asked what he was doing and the second explained he was afraid of explosive decompression, freezing and asphyxiation which he’d experience if he let go. The first, being sensible, told him to let go and he’d be fine. He did and fell up. Your story reminds me of that tale, and I can’t possible due Bodē’s actual comic justice.
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Sounds very interesting, I’ll google it when I get home. I’m not totally sure if this guy is right, and no one knows, or if the others are right, and he’s a poor, disturbed man. I guess we’ll never know 😀 Thanks for a good comment and tip, James!
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Nice one, with a great painting to go with it.
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Thank you, Chris! I had the sketch lying around for some time, not knowing how to write about it. It ended up like this 🙂
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A massive task for one man – saving the world. I can’t wait until he tries nailing the sea.
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He will have a problem, no doubt about that. The question is: what will happen if the surface starts peeling on the sea bottom?
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Yeek, I hope he has someone to pass the job on to when he retires!
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Well, if you ever get bored of blogging…
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This fear is kind of like the one that you’ll fall up and never stop falling.
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That would be quite an intense situaton, I believe…
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Thank goodness someone is doing something about this problem 🙂
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Yes, we’re all in great debt to the hammer man 🙂
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a very strange story indeed; but I like the concept, I like how the story unfurls, quietly and unfussily
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Thanks! I made a sketch for this one, and wanted to finish it for the blog, but had no idea what to write about it. I had it lying around for weeks, watching it every once in a while and in the end it ended up like this. Strange indeed 😀
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