Bricklayer Õie Toom building a wall

“Damn it, the border needs to be closed!” Krustang demanded. Now it was Karla Treiberg’s turn to speak and he said: “A big wall should be built around Estonia like the one in China or Berlin, and this is your speciality, my friend Krustang. What do you think?” The serious and matter-of-fact conversation with what was possibly the fate of a country and its people hanging in the balance had suddenly become empty joking, and Karla Treiberg tried to make fun of him, Krustang, again. The plug popped from the vessel and Krustang angrily answered that Treiberg shouldn’t make jokes like that.”

Excerpt from The Bricklayer, a short story by Ilmar Külvet