When I was a child, I was told I would never accomplish much. I couldn’t read very good, and I couldn’t explain myself to teachers. I want to leave this as my account of what I accomplished. Something many couldn’t dream of.

It all started when I was a kid. Mr. Wills was my history teacher and was what a man should be. He was strong, a soldier, and loved telling us about war. He said he was a communications officer and would share stories about his service. One time, he showed us a picture of himself standing on a mountaintop. He explained that a missile had struck that spot the next day, and he was lucky to be alive.

“Can anyone tell me why the United Kingdom went to war with Nazi Germany?” You could hear a pin drop in that classroom.

I raised my hand.

“Yes, Kevin?”

“Cause they took the Sedanland.”

Mr. Wills rolled his eyes, and one of the girls in the front row raised her hand.

“They fully occupied Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement.”

“Yes! Exactly.”

I stopped answering questions.

When I got my final exam back, I grinned ear to ear. “Sir! Is this mark correct?” Mr. Wills walked over slowly and paused before answering.

“Yes.” He squinted at me. “Do you think you should have gotten higher?”

I shook my head. “No sir, I’m happy I got a sixty-three. I can’t believe it. Thanks!” I went home and showed my parents.

My dad looked at the exam and nodded his head, and my mom said, “That’s nice,” but didn’t even look. It didn’t matter to me though. I went and got it framed.

At sixteen, my dad pulled me aside. “Boy, you’re not much for learning. You should put your hands to good use.”

“But I wanna learn about law. I wanna be a lawyer.”

“You could probably be a builder instead.”

I got hired at a concrete-pouring business, where I poured concrete. Was hard work but I learned lots. I learned how to dig too, build walls, and make nice patterns. At twenty, I made my own business, which I called DigCo. Clever right?

I even got myself a beautiful wife. Didn’t last long though, since she didn’t believe in my dreams. I got ambitions, and she would always say, “Just go make us money,” or “Why can’t we have a kid? I want kids, Kevin!” But I would just try to convince her of the plan.

When I came home with my shovel, she stood on the deck of our porch looking at me. I told her, “I have special skills, you don’t know about my special skills.” She just looked at me with a twisted face, stormed inside, and slammed the door.

“Well, I guess she doesn’t get it.”

So I started digging. The hole was small at first. After eight hours, the hole was turning into a pit.

“What the fuck?” she screamed. “Look at all this dirt!”

“Yeah, we’ll need it for later.”

“Later?”

I shrugged. “Could always use good soil.”

That was the last time I saw her. Don’t know if she gave me divorce papers. Just left. It took me about a week to notice. My neighbors complained. They said the house was “ugly” and that they didn’t like the twenty-foot mound of dirt in my backyard.

“Hey!” A man in a uniform was yelling down into my hole. “Hey!”

I looked up and squinted. I took off my hard hat out of respect. “Good day, officer!”

“What are you doing? Did you get permits for this?”

I shook my head.

“You need to get a permit to do this! How have you not hit the waterline yet?”

“Oh, I hit that a few weeks ago.”

The man couldn’t believe what I had accomplished. “WHAT!?”

“Oh yeah, gas lines too. But I got special skills, so the town is safe.”

“Get up here right now!” His face was red with excitement.

I climbed into the makeshift shaft elevator I had made and used a pulley system to get up to the surface. The man was standing there.

“You can’t keep digging.” His voice was stern.

“Why not?”

“Becau—” The man lost his footing and slipped. After ten or so seconds, I heard a soft, meaty thud against hard stone.

“Uh oh. I forgot to install a safety rail. I oughta do that.”

I set up a marker around the pit and looked at the officer at the bottom of the pit. Well, what was left of the poor guy. I took out blasting charges and began to set them near the bottom of the hole. A couple people came by.

“Have you seen John?” the one guy asked me.

“No.”

They left. I don’t know who John was. Surprised they weren’t looking for the officer. I set off those blasting charges and blew a hole into the stone. Once it was done, my silo was dug out. The next step was building my nuclear missile.

I read about it on the internet, and it seemed simple enough to construct. I just needed some enriched uranium and a warhead. My friend told me it would be impossible and that you can’t get enriched uranium in Canada.

Well, he was wrong.

I went to a university that had a nuclear reactor and asked to see their nuclear physics professors. I showed them my shovel and explained what I was doing. At first they laughed, but then I showed them my blueprints and silo. One professor cried and told me not to hurt his children, but I just laughed. I told him I was planning on using it for self-defense, not to hurt people. He seemed to relax after hearing that.

Well, they explained to me how it works. They also suggested that I speak to a doctor, but I assured them I had radiation suits I purchased off Amazon. I explained to them that I’m an excellent builder and that I could build anything.

It took me a while, but I ended up building it. I even learned how to build retracting doors over the silo to make it look legitimate. Now we could say that Canada possesses one nuclear missile. I had the launch panel set up, and at the push of a button I could launch my missile.

I would sit outside and admire my silo. The extra dirt I had was put to good use. I sold it to the government, which helped fund my project. My backyard was clean, much to the satisfaction of my neighbors and township.

The best thing that happened was finding a new wife who supported my ambitions. She drove excavators and told me I was crazy for using a shovel. I just laughed. We ended up getting married. We even had a couple kids. But they don’t matter.

A couple men in suits came to me one day while I was admiring my missile silo. They told me my missile was illegal.

“Sir, you can’t have a nuclear weapon in your backyard. That’s absurd,” the one man said.

“We will need to confiscate it. We’re here with the U.N.”

“The what?” I asked. “That some sort of rival construction company?”

The two corporate spies glanced at one another. “No,” they said. “The United Nations?”

“Oh, like Habitat for Humanity.” I nodded my head. “Well, I can assure you I got permits.” I handed them the permits the town planner gave me.

The man didn’t even look at it. “No, you don’t get it. You’re in violation of INTERNATIONAL LAW. Canada isn’t allowed to own nuclear weapons.”

I thought for a moment. “Well, I’m just Kevin. I don’t represent Canada.”

“How did you build this anyways?” the smaller man asked. The larger man seemed annoyed.

So I explained to the man how to build your own missile silo and construct your own nuclear weapon.

“Very impressive!” he said, but the other man shook his head. “Can you open the silo?”

“But if I open the silo, nothing will stop the missile. The blast doors will be open, you see.”

“I’m ordering you to open those doors.” His voice was firm. “Open it, now.”

“Fine, fine.” I handed them protective goggles and hard hats. “For safety reasons.”

I didn’t know why he wanted me to launch my missile, but I assumed he wanted to see my skills. I typed my code into the terminal, and the blast doors opened.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he said. “He actually built it!”

“Yep, with my shovel, hands, and grit!” I proclaimed proudly.

LAUNCH INITIATED.

The two men began to panic. “Fellas, relax,” I tried to ease them. “The warhead is set to go towards the ocean. It was a self-defense tool. I’ll just build another one.”

The bigger man pointed up at the sky. “Kevin, your missile isn’t arcing.”

I looked at the guidance computer. I glanced up and saw the missile was heading back towards us.

I should have built a bunker.