The Chipping Hammer

“Does it take that much time?” I am thoroughly compelled to say “Yes you moron, it does.” But I refrain from using these superlative words. It has been happening on a daily basis now and I suddenly feel the need to explode. I go to the carpenter’s workshop and pick up a chipping hammer, in a chipping gun’s stead, perhaps because it helps you vent better. I go outside on the deck and rush back in. A gust of fresh wind on my face had chilled the veins in my cheeks. I wear a monkey-cap under my helmet and go out again. Its quarter to three in the afternoon in the northern latitude of seventy one degrees. It’s dark as hell. And as freezing. In the distance I see a red rectangle.

“Oh it’s a fire hose box. I’m the one responsible for its maintenance. So let me do something.”
I raise my hammer and take aim.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

Flakes of moist, frozen rust fly. One enters my eye. I cry out loud. No one’s there. No one hears my cry. I go to the emergency eye wash cubicle on the deck and wash my eye with water. The feeling of relief is readily overcome by the not-yet-subsided-anger. I take aim at the fire hose box once again. I will hole it, I say in my mind. Its better sometimes, to listen to your brain. This becomes soon very apparent to me even as I stop my hammer just before the last flakes of rust fly off and the pale shiny metal appears. Two more strokes and it would have given in.

“Idiot! It’s you who’ll be screwed if it gets holed. It’s you who’ll have to mend it.” This echoes in my brain as the anger in me grows more and more faint.

I come inside and make my presence felt to a pair of owl’s eyes.

“Oh it’s already dark. Don’t be on deck after its dark. It’s not safe. Go have some rest.”

What the hell. I am done hearing all this safety gibberish. “See dude,” I want to say, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” But I once again refrain from it.

I remember someone’s words, “Dude, just two words and your life will be set.” I blurt out without thinking “Yes Sir.”

I go to my cabin and have a hearty laugh.