4338.220 · August 8, 2018 AD
The First Cuts
Adrian Pafistis and Nial Triffett spent the afternoon cutting window openings, a side entrance, and ventilation holes into the Learning Grove's first shipping container. Kain Jeffries assisted with cleanup and the less precise cuts. By late afternoon, the container had five rough openings admitting light and air — unframed, unfinished, and sharp-edged, but structurally sound. The steel box that had arrived that morning as featureless cargo now had the basic shape of a room.
Adrian Pafistis started the angle grinder shortly after midday. The first cut followed the uppermost chalk line on the container's northern wall — the top edge of the larger of the two window openings Jenny Triffett had specified that morning. The grinder screamed through the corrugated steel, throwing a fan of orange sparks across the cleared ground. Nial Triffett stood inside the container, bracing the section of wall below the cut to prevent vibration from distorting the line.
The work was slower than it looked. Each window opening required four cuts — top, bottom, and two sides — with the grinder repositioned and steadied for each pass. Adrian cut from the outside, keeping the spark trail away from the interior where Nial was working. The first window took the better part of an hour. When the final cut completed the rectangle, the section of wall dropped inward and Nial caught it, lowering it to the floor rather than letting it fall. Light entered the container through a rough-edged hole for the first time.
Kain Jeffries arrived after the first window was complete and took over debris clearance — dragging cut steel panels out of the container, sweeping metal filings from the floor, keeping the work area around Adrian's feet clear of material that could shift underfoot. Between cleanup tasks, Adrian directed him to cut the smaller ventilation circles near the roofline, where precision mattered less and the consequence of an uneven line was cosmetic rather than structural.
The second window went faster. Adrian and Nial had calibrated their rhythm — Adrian cutting, Nial bracing, the section falling inward on the final pass and being lowered to the floor each time. The side entrance on the southern wall required a longer cut and more careful measurement, the opening needing to be square enough to accept a door frame when one became available. Adrian took extra time on the vertical cuts, checking plumb with a spirit level borrowed from the settlement's limited tool supply.
By mid-afternoon, the container had two window openings on its northern wall, one smaller window on the eastern end, a side entrance on the southern wall, and three ventilation holes near the roofline. The cuts were rough. The edges were sharp and unfinished — anyone brushing against them would be cut. No glass, no frames, no door. The interior was still bare steel and plywood, now littered with metal filings and the chalky residue of the morning's marking.
Nial ran his eyes along the edge of the nearest window cut and noted that the steel would need filing before anyone — particularly a child — could safely be near it. Adrian agreed. That work, along with framing, interior preparation, and everything else that would turn this container into a functioning classroom, would continue the following day and the days after that.
The container stood on the cleared ground with light falling through five rough openings. It was not a classroom. It was closer to one than it had been that morning.
