Nailhead

When I moved into my current house in Virginia, one of the first things I noticed about my new bedroom was that a nailhead emerged from the woodwork of the windowsill by my bed. Mental note: need to hammer that down before I rip something on it.

It was not the last time I noticed the nailhead. In fact, I got to know the nailhead very well. It's not flat, in fact it might not be what you would consider a proper nailhead. It's the backside of a nail, to be sure, but rather than being flat and wide, it really just consists of a slight increase in the diameter of the nail for the last millimeter of its length.

The nailhead protruded just three or four millimeters from the windowsill into which the haft of the nail was vertically driven. It's not a very remarkable spot - my bed, pushed up against the window, is slightly higher than the sill in question. However, I do spend a lot of time at that window - it's one of two places in this house where T-Mobile gives me a cellular signal. So I got to know the nail. I would see it at least twice a week, every time registering the need to retrieve the hammer from the second shelf of the bookcase on the first floor and hammer the nail into place.

With the passage of time, the nail grew in stature and I shrank. I didn't doubt my ability to retrieve the hammer from the second shelf of the bookcase on the first floor - I had done so and used the hammer for various other, larger, projects many times. But I didn't really believe that I could move the nail. The force of inertia was on its side: after flaunting gravity for so long, who was I to presume power over the Nailhead?

Today, when I got home from work, I went to my room. And I thought of the Nailhead. "I've been meaning to fix that", I said. And I walked downstairs, retrieved the hammer from the second shelf of the bookcase on the first floor, and climbed back up the stairs. Being careful not to hit the window, I firmly tapped the nailhead until it sat flush with the wood, unnoticeable except as a dark spot on a white windowsill.

Did it take me thirty seconds to tap in a nailhead, or did it take me six months and twenty-one days?