Post Repair

I grabbed our wagon, pushing it over to where my father stood, forever carven in wood. Carefully, I tipped him into the wagon, the bent steel post in his upraised fist clanging against the sides. Then I wheeled him to our workshop behind the house.

I had a thought of how to counter this assault. It was the seed of an idea for bringing this blasphemous war we had started to an end. And the very thought of what I would have to do made me sick to my stomach.

Once in the shop, I struggled to wrest the steel post from my father's wooden fingers, but it would not budge. Twenty minutes with a hammer and chisel, however, rectified that problem. I tried to ignore the four wooden fingers now lying on the floor.

Then I set to work. I fired the forge up as hot as it would go. Over the next several hours, I beat and worked on that steel post until it was as straight again as I could make it. I reinforced it with a wish and a prayer, finally polishing it with my own sweat and tears until it gleamed as clear as glass.