The Trove of Promised Fortune

With his brusque, rugged little fingers, he plundered the dourly damp soil. Rooting in exhausting haste, this man of gnomish stature quarried for a recently passed confidant to whom he had expelled his most wicked and looming thoughts. Due to the feverish manner with which this man dug, the edges of the sullied memorial became fluted in a peculiarly perfect oval shape. The process was mortifyingly slow and as the pale hide of morning beamed over the far off limestone peaks, there was still much work yet to be completed.

Crowns of liquefied sod curdled from the deeply set furrow of the small man’s brow. He glanced with ill ease toward the gnarled gate, firmly latched and undisturbed. Though reassured by the immobile security of the chains and lock, a sprinting notion was inadvertently pressed and glowing in the back portion of his driven and forceful mind…

Attempting to diminish any and all stray thought, the man continued vigorously and with an apparent air of nonchalance. The more ground he excavated, the more contoured his perception became. His veins pulsated from overexertion and his blood rapidly coursed through the narrow passageways of his body. Lucidity glazed his insomnia-ridden brain, and for the first time in days, allowed for rest. Briefly, in this rare moment of necessary relaxation, he abandoned his undeniably precise elliptic trench, trudging on by forgotten and un-kept gravesites.

After several minutes meandering about the cemetery, the man’s thorough tiredness decisively grasped him, leading him to slip beneath the contorted black-wire branches of a gallant, eternal tree. Temporarily, yet remorsefully discarding his digging efforts and nestling into the serene, soggy pillow of fallen leaves and other unknown debris.

Awakening much later in star-lined moonlight, a revolting sensation of nausea and otherwise hazy vision inched through him. As he pried his weathered body (mostly water-weight) from the stench-plagued earth ‘neath him, a portion seemed cemented, forever lost in the crumbling folds of the turgid tree roots. Billowing onward, fumbling miserably over the languid bog vegetation, pausing momentarily in a bought of dire uncertainly. Eventually, he took in a breath of ill conceit, setting his minute, tarnished and torn foot pads back into the so hurriedly formulated semi-chasm. With eyes of bursting, incendiary avarice, he found the much-sought remains of his poor comrade after mere minutes of setting back to work. After fiercely foraging for the coveted trove of fortune such grave robbing had promised, the man took notice not of the lack of desired items, but what was, indeed, present. The uncanny resemblance between he and the deceased…