The Mine and the Men Who Stole It
They came with nothing but their hands,
raw, cracked, burned from the work.
Men who knew the weight of a pickaxe,
who knew the sound of steel biting stone,
who knew nothing in this world is free.
Block by block, they built the tunnels,
carved wealth from the dark,
earned what they took because they took it themselves.
Not with words.
Not with paper.
With hands, with backs, with lungs full of dust.
And for a time, it was theirs.
The rules were simple.
You dig, you get paid.
You break the rock, you take what you earned.
No one gives you a damn thing.
Then they came.

Not the diggers.
Not the men who knew the weight of labor.
Not the men who could swing an axe without breaking their wrist.
No.
These were the talkers.
The soft ones, the ones who live on top of the world
but somehow always manage to take from those at the bottom.
"This mine is unfair," they said.
"The wealth is not shared," they sighed.
"Everyone should have the same," they whispered.
And the diggers, covered in soot,
their lungs coated in the proof of their work,
looked up at the men in suits and laughed.
Because they knew a con when they saw one.

But a good con doesn’t take,
not at first.
It asks.
It smiles.
It reasons.

And the diggers, too tired to fight,
made the worst mistake a man can make.
They listened.
It started small.
A rule here, a shift there.
"A man should not take more than his share," they said.
"We must make it fair," they sighed.
"The mine must belong to all," they lied.
And the diggers, too busy breaking rock,
let them talk.

Talking became law.
Law became rules.
Rules became chains.

And suddenly, the diggers owned nothing.
But the men in the suits?
They owned everything.
Now, every block was counted.
Now, every ounce of sweat was measured.
Now, the men who did nothing earned the most
while the ones who split their knuckles on stone
were told they were lucky to have anything at all.

And when the diggers asked why,
when they finally saw what had been taken,
they were told—

"This is equality."
"This is fairness."
"This is how it should have been all along."
But it was a lie.
Because the men in the suits didn’t dig.
They didn’t carry the weight.
They didn’t choke on dust or feel their bones grind.

They earned without earning.
Took without asking.
Controlled without lifting a single rock.
And the worst part?
They still called it the same mine.
Still wore the name like they built it.
Still talked about fairness
as they grew fat on the sweat of dead men.

And the diggers?
The ones who made it real?
They knew what had to be done.
They walked.
Left the tunnels empty.
Left the wealth in the hands of the ones
who had no idea how to keep it.

The suits panicked.
"They’ll come back," they said.
"They always come back."

But they didn’t.
They found new ground.
They dug where no committee could reach.
Where no soft hand could steal the sweat from their backs.
Where they built their own rules and carved their own wealth.
And the old mine?
It stood there, silent.
A monument to the lie of equality,
to the cowards who take without giving.
A place where men in suits sat in empty tunnels,
waiting for workers who would never return.
Because some men dig, and some men steal.
And when the diggers leave,
the thieves have nothing left to take.

S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Mar 17, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1901539963545735542?t=VrGDlqt64bvaaHrAZ8pN2A&s=19

https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2676