Man in the Mine A life in the ghetto is no life at all. Especially in Molesville, Pennsylvania, a town left in the dust by modern society. Ever since I can remember my mother has been sick, this terrible place is the cause. With little sanitation the streets are rat infested and the poor die young. We had not had enough money, when my father left us, to afford food to live with, let alone go get help from a doctor. After my mother’s pregnancies she gradually became more and more sick. I thought my mother was in pain from the way she sat on her bed constantly crying.
That theory was proven one day when her will to fight died. She transformed into a being of hatred. Her heart turned as black as the night. She was different, the mother I once knew dead. Although I knew she was still there, deep, deep down waiting for me to rescue her from herself. In almost an instant I decided the only way to save her was to earn the money for her treatment. The only problem is that the medicine cost over 200 dollars and there is only one place in town that would give me the money fast enough to save her. This was working in the Molesville Mines.
The only reason this town existed was that mine. I would use it as a tool to save my mother. The very next day I travelled to the mine to get the job. It was a bright sunny morning. The breeze felt great on my cheeks as I walked the 5 mile road to the mine. As I arrived a man no older than thirty greeted me. “Wus’ a kid like you doin’ here? ” he said? Almost as an instinct | spat back. “I ain’t a kid, I’m a man and I walked here to be gettin’ a job” The man looked me up and down and said with a grin; “You’ll do son” He then offered me. 5 dollars a day.
I gladly accepted this knowing I would not be able to barter him any lower. “Wus your name,” he said. “It’s Bill, Bill Smith,” I said nervously. “Okay, so we got a 5″ 4′ skinny blonde kid joining Jerry,” said Bill to his subordinate. The man named Jerry marked a scribble on his paper then went back to what he was doing. “Follow me kid” the man said as he lead a path into the mine. The mine was dark and dreary and looked like a tomb. Once we finished walking I met up with several other kids. “These are the others. Just follow their lead and you’ll do jus’ fine”
They looked terrible. They had been covered in dirt from god knows how much work they had to do. They were not much older than me, but they sat fatigued from the job. I had not considered that it was going to be this hard. I thought I had prepared for the worst, but I realized this was much, much worse. My job, the others said, was to help them push mine carts full of ore to different spots in the mine. I would have to travel around the mine and pick up the ore that had been freed from the walls. Fast forward two years and I am still in the mine.
Working for the same men. Making the same pay. I had saved up 180 dollars and almost had enough to save my mother. The only problem; my mother had gotten progressively worse. By the way she was acting I knew she did not have long to live. I wanted to make more money faster for her. With this I became reckless. I worked more hours and slept less. I realized that I was finally becoming a man. After working like this for several days my luck had run out. I was hauling rocks one day in the mine when I suddenly collapsed when I awoke I felt a terrible pain in my chest.
Even though I could tell many hours had past I was in the same place and bringing the same musty air. My chest felt like a million needles simultaneously jabbed into it. I knew my dream of saving my mother was over. I walked out of the mine to find it was dark outside. I began to cry. When I arrived home I collapsed on the stairs with fatigue. After waking up this time, I once again thought I was in the mine. I was wrong. I woke up in a small bed covered in blankets with my two younger siblings staring at me. “What happened,” they both said as soon as my eyes had opened. I told them all of it.
What I had been doing to save our mother the work I was going through. The pain I had endured trying to achieve this goal. They both began to cry and told me to never worry about money anymore. I once again passed out. It was morning, but something was not right. I felt strange like my body was not my own. I was in the same room, yet something was different. I got up looked in the mirror and was astonished at what I saw. I felt that what I was looking at could not be a mirror because the images I saw were not of me. I saw a poorly shaven man of about twenty-five staring back at me.
He was thin and looked like death had barely escaped him. He was scary, although what scared me the most is thinking about what had happened to me. About this time I heard someone entering the house. I limped down the stairs to see my mother looking back at me. Something was wrong. Yes she looked like my mother, but she was too young. The woman gasped then collapsed on the floor. With a closer look I realised it was not my mother, but my younger sister. She had grown and aged just as I had. The realization of what was happening hit me like brick. I had been in a coma.
When my sister awoke she began to cry. I told her she did not need to and reminded her of the promise I had made to always protect my family. When she had calmed down she told me of what had happened. She told me that I was in a coma for ten years and had barely survived. She said that thankfully our mother had been saved with the money I had helped to raise. With the extra life I had given her she devoted herself to taking care of me. She gave me food and water everyday and was the only reason I am still alive today. Almost instantly I asked where my mother was.
I wanted to thank her for all of the things she had done for me and to apologize for leaving her to go work in the mines. Even though I asked this question my sister did not reply. She just sat there with a heartbroken frown on her face. “Mama has passed,” she barely whispered before she continued to cry. At first I was shocked. As the truth began to sink in I thought about her. All I could do was think to myself of how she would have lived such a better life if I had not been born. I left my sister and went back into the room that I had spent all those years laying in.
I went back in the exact same spot I had been in for all those years and closed my eyes. I had awoken from the coma, yet I had never really woken up. My life was taken from me the first day I went into that mine. I thought I was a man for sacrificing myself for my family, yet this was the most selfish thing I could have done. I became a martyr, but for what? To make my family happier? To give my family a better life? No, I became a martyr because it was the easiest thing! could have done. I thought I was a man but I was not. I was just a selfish little child.
