Winter Solstice

He’d been carving and scraping all day for the past month. Every year he felt the same after a fortnight or so, but every year he came back. He knew in the back of his mind that he’d keep coming back until his body could no longer stand the pace. But right now, all he wanted was a warm bed and a cup of steaming cocoa.

“Hey, Lost Boy!” Ivan was working hard about 4 meters down the wall from him. He’d been calling him Lost Boy ever since they met in Borgholm seven years ago. “Pick up the pace, will you! The guests will start arriving in a few hours and this hotel is not going to finish himself, you know.”
“Ivan. What the fuck is wrong with the guests, anyway? Who wants to sleep in a hotel made of ice?”
“Every year, Lost Boy, every year you ask me this question when you get tired. And every year I tell you the same thing: Who’s crazier – the African Lost Boy who travels halfway around the world to work on it for a month, or the person who sleeps in it for one night? Has the African sun touched your brain, or is everyone from down there as thick as you?”
“Nah. Just the ones who visit this ugly, freezing snowball of a thing you people call ‘home’ as often as I do... Why does the last night always feel like the its the longest of the year?”
Ivan laughed. He only had one laugh, it came deep from his belly and you could help laughing along: “Because we have thick headed Africans helping us, so we’re always behind schedule. Now put your back into it!”

A few hours later, they sat on a small mound of snow, admiring their handiwork. The sun came up, making the hotel glitter like something from a fairy tale. “You see, Lost Boy. It will melt in the end, just like everything else. But right here, right now - isn’t it beautiful?”