I strike at the rocky wall again, and again, and again. My pickaxe never breaking.

Sweat drips down my forehead. Me, a miner, looking for the gold.

A rumoured, gigantic vein of brilliant gold, at the bottom of this mine.

I'm the only one who's heard of it, so thus I'm the only one who searches for it.

I've been here. For a long while. Years, maybe a few more than a dozen.

Not long enough to stop feeling completely. Just partway.

I don't even want to sell it, or make any money off of it. I just wish to see it with my eyes.

I've carved myself a base, a home cave, where I sleep, and leave all of the diamonds I've found.

In a big, big pile, with just thousands of diamonds.

Despite what the legends may tell you, they don't have that blue-green sheen to them.

They never did. They are worthless. I came looking for the gold.

And here I am, digging yet another tunnel. After all this time, maybe I'll find it.

Even so, I should hurry. I heard that, if too much time passes, the gold will have lost its shine.

But I don't worry about that all too much. Even if it doesn't shine, I can still look at it, and see its face.

I'll know, deep in my mind, that I'll have failed my mission, and that had I pushed harder, I'd have seen it alive.

But at least I can pretend. As long as it's there, who am I to care what it does?

No, the lack of shine doesn't worry me. Something else.

Back to the moment. Pickaxe. Stone. Dark. Swing. Swing. Swing. Push rubble aside. Swing.

Swing gets stopped.

My pickaxe, lodged in the stone, is stopped. Something's pushing it back, from the inside.

My lungs skip a breath. It was true, all along. I hit the stone surrounding the hole I just made a few more times,

Creating a gap, wide enough to see through clearly.

The yellow. That brilliant yellow. Still alive. Still there, it seems.

Yes.

But wait.

No.

Please.

Please don't let it be.

Looking down, at the gold.

I see tiny flecks of white, scattered about on its surface.

Callouses.

Frenzied, I reach out to touch it, pull them off, get them off.

Get them off.

But I can't. Running my hand over it, the callouses spread, further and further.

Networks of white cracks, growing, enveloping.

Eventually, there's not a trace of the glimmering gold left. It's just that cracked, sad white colour.

I hit it, I dig into it hard with my pick, but to no avail. It's protected.

Thoughts stop thinking. I crawl away, get away from the cage I found. Scramble to my feet and run back where I came from.

Back towards my base. My little place I sleep. I get there in mere seconds, despite it being so, so far away.

And walking in, looking at my big, big pile,

The diamonds, the thousands and thousands of diamonds,

Have melted together into crystalline crem, coating the stone walls of the cave, and the floor, and the ceiling.

Blocking all the exits.

I can't even see the beyond it. It's just a blue-green abyss of reflection.

I fall to my knees, looking. Begging something of the solidified, formless crystal.

I know I never cared for you much, but please, let me die having actually obtained some reward.

Let me hold a little treasure in my hands as I die, even if it were just a miniscule shard of gem.

I claw at it, trying to pull anything of it free, but my fingernails just get torn off.

Thoughtlessly, effortlessly, I grab the pickaxe at my side,

Which I never brought with me. I dropped it, back when I found the gold.

And I bring it down on the surface.

It all cracks. Every inch of the crystal turns into a million little fragments. Like bluish sand.

The ceiling, that was coated in gem, all falls down on me. I'm enveloped, unable to move,

From my collapsed pose. I breathe it in.

I'm dying.

And the gold died, too.

​

(Dedicated to Catrina. You make me wish I'd dug faster.)