The Words of the Mouth

by Ronald Smith

  ******

  I was up on the steep triangular roof of the hall, putting down sarking boards after we had removed all the pantiles which had been loosed by the blast that demolished the pig stys. It was too much effort to erect scaffolding, so Jamie and I hammered down a piece of two by two across the timbers, and stood on it while we fixed the planks. To put the last board down, I had to remove the two by two I was standing on, and spread myself on the roof so gravity and friction would hold me there.

  I had a couple of two inch nails in my mouth, and I carefully lifted up the hammer with one hand to whack the board into place.

  Jamie was standing further up the roof.

  I started slipping. It was about forty feet to the concrete below. I gulped with fright and swallowed the nails.

  To stop myself sliding, I had to flatten myself against the roof, flattening my back and spreading my weight. I felt the nails going down my throat.

  ‘Guys can swallow swords,' I recalled in a flash, 'so I can swallow two nails.' They vanished inside me.

  For a couple of days I looked in my stools, however the nails never came out. I briefly wondered if the metal detector at airports would go 'bringgg' the next time I went abroad. But it never happened.