After too long looking at silver screws he decided he wanted nice things. The silver screws were unevenly attached to his wall and they weren’t even silver anymore—they were unhappy. And he was unhappy. He went to the store.
The first nice thing was a painting of a seaside—a pockmarked beach with no dead fish, only twigs. Optimistic painter, he thought, and he looked at those contained-looking, but maybe not contained, waves as they moved off the canvas and down the dirty wall to touch his feet. Waves touching his feet was a nice thing and he brightened at the beach on his wall—things as they were were nice again.
The second nice thing was a necklace not for neck but wall, and on wall it drooped its black and ivory beads while looking out at him, saying, Thank you for buying me; it’s great to be on a wall with nice things. He nodded to the necklace, but his neck tightened and his hearing went away for a little while. Why wouldn’t necklace want to be on neck? Why wouldn’t neck want to have necklace? But he needed nice things in front of his eyes. Even the black beads, though dark, shed light.
With a few more screws to cover he went back for more but couldn’t find any, so he returned home, happy to have at least a few nice things. He looked at them and they looked at him. All three giving a little to make the relationship work.
After dinner he thought he heard the painting ask if he himself was a nice thing and he said, Of course I am—it takes a nice thing to know other nice things. How could you ever not think I was a nice thing? I don’t know, it said, I’ve been looking you over for a week or so and I think maybe sometimes you are and sometimes you aren’t.
This hurt. How could this nice thing say such a thing? He didn’t know. How could he answer when being a nice thing himself precluded him from saying bad things? And that painting, that voice behind the painting, if it was such a nice thing, what was it doing saying bad things? The ocean was okay, but nice? He was going to give the painting one more chance, but didn’t and took it away, leaving one nice thing.
The necklace was quieter, more gentle. He’d liked its attitude from the start. The beads didn’t pretend to move, just kept centered, content, ready to embrace the most vicious the world had to offer.
And he ate in comfort, the beaded necklace keeping steady, very steady, so steady he became a little concerned. He knew it was a necklace, but why didn’t it move, why didn’t it say something to him, like, Good job baking that pie? It wasn’t about good or pie; it was him in front of a wall. Why was the necklace just drooping there? He looked at it up close, ran his thumb over the beads both black and white and said, Does this tickle? Does this make you feel anything? His necklace had gone numb, beads too stolid to be surprised with joy. Such a thing could not be nice. And since he had become a nice thing he had to surround himself only with nice things, necklace not one of them.
He slept for a few hours before he went back in front of the wall. Screws, wall, and him. The screws weren’t so bad. Maybe they weren’t nice, but they didn’t pretend to be anything other than they were—they were screws. And the wall couldn’t improve itself—it did its job. Screws, wall, and him—a nice slogan. And him—he kept it all together. The idea man of the three. A nice man with many ideas.