The Separation

Soon after they move into the house, Bill begins finding nails on the floor. At first they’re tiny, and infrequent, so he places them in his toolbox with a mind to search for where they came from later. In no time though, he’s finding larger nails, and screws, scattered under doorways and beneath window frames. It’s as though, he thinks, they’re being shaken out. Perhaps there’s some sort of high-frequency noise around, something outside of human hearing but capable of vibrating nails from walls? It’s strange. That, and his daughter’s crying most of the night now. She was always quiet in the apartment. And his wife’s been having terrible episodes of sickness where she’s unable to keep anything down… “I’m afraid of what it might be doing to my milk,” she tells Bill. “What might?” “Being sick like this all the time.” Bill spends his evenings looking for the holes the screws have worked themselves loose, and replacing them. His wife moans and tries to quiet the baby. A month in, the molding begins to strip itself from the walls. After two months, the floorboards start to come up. His wife leaves with their daughter. Repairmen shake their heads, refuse to enter the front door. Tiny holes begin appearing everywhere. Bill scours the uneven floorboards looking for things to plug up the holes. His wife calls him every night, but each time she does, less and less of her makes it over the line.