Thud, thud, thud. A repeated gravelly sound of metal scraping against clay filled my ears, and the smell of grass and mud permeated the air like gasoline at a gas station. The hot summer sun beat against my face as beads of sweat formed on my forehead and neck rolled down my skin. Dad had tasked me with digging up a cherry tree’s trunk.  

The house I grew up in was a normal suburban residency sprinkled with little gardens around the front yard, and one noticeable plant in the yard was a chokecherry tree. It had deep purple-maroon leaves, a slim dark trunk, and almost cartoonishly perfect-shaped foliage. When I was in elementary school, this tree got infected and succumbed to tree rot. The wood and roots started to decay and to prevent this from spreading further, my parents had to cut it down. 

After the tree was gone, a trunk remained, and with only a shovel and a pair of 8-year-old hands, I began the seemingly simple, yet formidable chore. I spent hours on that summer day digging and digging, jutting my shovel into the ground from different angles, pushing and pulling to pry my stubborn enemy out of the dirt. The tree had 20 years of roots invested in this battle, but my weapon was my stubborn determination. The clouds were rolling in and the battle had commenced. It was a muddy fight that would take more grit and determination than any battle I had previously faced. I had destroyed half of the trunk and the battle was looking bright. My next mission was infiltrating the enemy’s core arsenal: the center roots. I plotted my scheme and darted to the bottom of the pit with my shovel in hand. Lifting my weapon, I brought down the shovel with all my force into the core roots. As my shoes sank into the muddied Earth below me, I could feel my blood go cold. All of a sudden, my shovel, my trusty shovel, broke in two. The handle and wooden shaft connecting the blade were completely separated. I was left stranded amid a war with no weapon, and no protection. 

Tears streamed down my face and my cheeks flamed red. The General—Dad—saw this and sighed, “Alex, you can go inside now. You have helped enough so go be a kid.” However, I did not want to go inside. My enemy had won the battle, but I would not surrender the war. I wanted to finish digging. I wanted to complete the job. Overcoming the whirlwind of emotions, I laid my honorable and brave weapon to rest and held my head high; there was a war to win. I grabbed General Dad’s shovel and attacked the stubborn, evil stump again. Shrapnel of dirt and chunks of root flew past my peripheral vision as I fought on the front lines against my foe. Hours in the blazing heat left my cheeks reddened by the sun and my mind weary from the long battle. Victory was in sight, but I could not slow down now. I had to think of all I had lost: my afternoon, my cleanliness, and most tragically, my partner in crime…my shovel. 

Rage and vengeance flooded my veins as I landed my final blows to my enemy’s defenses. I planted my feet into the pit’s edge and delivered a powerful strike to the last roots in sight. When I finally severed the only remaining root in the ground, I pierced my shovel into the soil of my fallen enemy and declared victory. Seeing this, my dad said something to me that I will never forget: “Alex, you might not be the strongest kid, but that determination you have is surely admirable, and it will get you further in life than anyone else.” I retreated from my freshly won victory to camp—my house—and washed up for dinner. Later that night, as I lay in my twin-sized bed staring at my Harry Potter and Percy Jackson posters, war memories passed through my mind. The soreness in my arms and bruises on my legs reminded me of The Treacherous Tree Trunk War. Tomorrow would bring new battles and new foes, but nothing I could not handle. I am, after all, Alexander the Great, Destroyer of Tree Trunks.