Faithful Pebble
Part Seventy-Five
The headsman coughed. His smile glided smoothly across his face. "The caves were dark and lonely, filthy filled with soot and mud, rocks and dust like a mine ought. It was also filled with men, grown men, dirty and rough, some old, some young, a few boys like him running here and there. They sacrificed their lungs, their minds and their futures over a dime for some lost mother, lost father, lost sister like his own. Each one dug quickly, silently. Each narrowly focused as they hulled and scratched through the earth. The boys, the men, the old and young fixated entirely on the search for that glow in the dark, that spark, that glimpse of silver white. It was rumored to be the most beautiful light ever seen by the naked eye. But this, that glow, that spark, that glimmer of snow white beauty is what the cave was not full of, what it ought to be, but wasn't."
"The diamonds weren't there?" the wanderer asked a little confused.
"Of course they weren't," Pebble shrugged. "I said it before. They'd dug up everything for generations and by the time the boy entered, there were few pieces left. It is said that the diggers did find other treasures in that mine of mines. Those kept the Baron's operation running a lot longer than it ought, the gold, the silver, the coal, and finally the dirt. But even then, it was a temporary fix.
"It was only a matter of time before the mind was bled dry, but at this time, they still found pockets. A diamond here, a diamond there missed, lost, hidden. Those kept them busy. Many such pockets were tucked away in crevasses too small for the grown men to reach. That was when the boys were sent in to dig and that was where our boy went."
"Deep in the caves, miles and miles away from the entrance, the men found a pocket," The headsman said. Here, he tucked his hands in his jacket and projected a look of stern apprehension. Here, his smile turned greedy. His mustache twitched as the crowd began to hush waiting eagerly to hear what they knew was coming, what they wished to come, what the guest in their midst was all the more eager to know of at last.
For those interested, Faithful Pebble is coming to YouTube as an audiobook/animated series. The first video goes up tomorrow, November 2nd. Be invited.
Also note that since I'm starting from the beginning, I'll also be re-proofreading the story here on fanfiction. I want the story here to match what is recorded there. No big changes, just fixing spelling, etc. Just a heads up. My hope is to figure out how to do this without spamming your inboxes. I apologize ahead of time if I fail at this attempt. - Calla