The Effects of Hard Work

Each year was the same. Each balmy summer, Anne would trek into the midwestern mountains to visit her grandpa. During the visit, the two would venture into the balmy forest and labor over a small, unsteady stick fort. And, each year without fail, the beloved fort would collapse in the winter under the frigid weight of the heavy blanket of snow, leaving only a damp pile of branches to salvage for the fort in the subsequent broiling summer. But this year, something was different. Something was off.

Another year, another summer, and Anne was back among the peaks of the mountains she loved so dearly. Slashed with spreads of burnt trees and crumbling landscape alongside sweeps of lush green life, the mountain range looked as if it were decorated with intricate, earthy ribbons. Anne breathed in the swirling, amalgamated smells of evergreen pines, rich soil and vanilla-scented oaks. Each footstep caused a cloud of dust to rise into the air and hover, clogging throats and stinging eyes. Towering blackened oaks shot tall shadows across Anne’s eyes, contrasting sharply with the petite, delicate flowers of the wild onions as they glowed their soft purple hue amid the shock of bright green leaves. The low, insistent buzzing of insects created a background of dim white noise that hummed in Anne’s ears, supplementing the interspersed twittering of birds, hammering of woodpeckers and shrieking of the ever-present turkey vultures.

But the most prominent of the forest’s features was the unrelenting heat. The air was a three-day-old bowl of pea soup: dry, thin and stale. An illusion of humidity hovered around Anne and Grandpa; a personal cloud of thick, damp air was created by their evaporating sweat. Fumbling hands of heat stretched down through the trees, sneaking through holes in the green canopy and slowly wrapping their fingers around Anne and Grandpa, squeezing out their breath and along with it, their energy.

The two had been working on the fort for just over an hour, carrying branches and hauling long sticks around the trees to the skeleton of a fort. Anne had gone numb, her mind undistracted, glued onto the single goal of building a sturdy fort. The mindless work let Anne relax throughout the difficult labor as she piled on branch after branch, bough after bough, limb after limb. Just as Anne was leaping to catch a loose and slipping branch, out of the corner of her eye she noticed Grandpa, who had been working behind her, trip and fall to his knees, dropping the bulky limb he had been carrying as if it weighed the entire world.

“Grandpa!” Anne called to him from several yards away, holding a branch against the fort.

For the briefest of moments, Anne glanced at the shaky structure as if it could collapse with the breath of an ant. But the moment broke and Anne rushed over to Grandpa, kneeling beside his heaving body.

“I’m alright,” he gasped, moving slowly and deliberately to rise to his feet, “Let’s keep moving.”

“No,” Anne declared, forcefully but kindly, “You need to rest.”

Anne knew, looking at her grandpa, that he was not alright. As each year passed, his health seemed to wane and building the small fort began to feel like building a castle without producing the same results.

A thudding sound caused the two to turn. The entire fort had slipped off of its position against the oak and crumpled to the ground. An hour of hard labor gone, wasted, fallen over with the smallest breath of an ant. Anne stared, hardly believing what had just happened. Her mind whirled, thinking, what should I do? and how can I fix this?

Anne’s mind, dormant and sleepy from the mindless, mechanical routine of the fort-building, woke suddenly. Her mental gears fired into action, thoughts pouring from her ears, each idea a fine strand of hair making up the straw-coloured locks that flowed from her head down her back. I need a plan this time, Anne thought frantically, looking around at the sticks surrounding her. I need to strategize and shape the fort in my mind.

The building of the fort became a footrace between Anne and the precious time before the sky would begin to be dyed its deep inky blue. Time rushed like a stampede, but Anne worked relentlessly. The seemingly repetitive, boring and tired motions were in fact, this time, brimming with thought, strategy and determination. Anne’s legs burned with each step, her hands were chapped and torn from carrying the branches and leaves adorned her hair like small clips. She looked to be the epitome of disorganization, but Anne’s flustered demeanor harbored an intense passion and determination to succeed. With the strength of her mind supporting the strength of her body, Anne was building a stronger, more secure fort with a pace that moved beyond light. With a few interjections here and there, Grandpa managed to steer Anne in the proper direction when the need arose. The two buzzed about the fort like bees, Grandpa full of the energy that had seemed to be diminishing. The fort was finished.

Anne stood back and let out a deep breath, admiring her hard work and glowing with pride.

“Very impressive, sweetheart,” a voice behind Anne caused her to jump and snap out of her reverie.

Laughing as she turned, Anne replied, “Grandpa, you scared me!”

Sweeping her into a hug, Grandpa stood with Anne and marveled at the structure for a few minutes longer.

“Do you remember the first time we built a fort together?” Grandpa asked with smiling eyes.

“How could I not? I knocked over the finished product and sat down and cried!” I replied, reflecting on the moment fondly.

Each year there was always something that went wrong, and despite the fun, the fort would always end up in shambles. This year, something had gone differently. Differently, but right.

However, these times do not always last forever. Anne and Grandpa went home. And that year, Grandpa died. But, that year, even when winter clawed at it with nails of ice and buffeted it with fists of snow, the fort remained standing.