The Unreachable Star

Mining Greed

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.

Bodhidharma

Dalila and Lily ran out of the door panting, into a mine. They were met by loud howls and electric guitar solos. They were slowly pushing wheels of weight with their chests. They were heading somewhere, but the two girls didn't know where.

"Those wheels are made of obsidian." she commented. They followed the people, watching them work hard. Then the heard loud commotions coming from a crowd standing around a high alien-like official.

"I think that their queen." Lily said. She looked around. "What's going on?" Lily asked a guard.

"This is the cry of youth. Listen." he replied.

"I want it all! And, I want it now!" cried the young men.

"Give! Give! Give! More! More! More!" the people shouted.

The queen threw gold at them. Her fingers were gold.

"Her heart of gold is cold. She's drawing them into her web of lies. Fear her." the guard told them. "Her kiss is the kiss of death!"

A youth in the crowd yelled at another. "She loves me most! She will give me anything I want!" he slapped the other then. They all struck against each other at that point then.

Soon, the queen settled the brawl by giving them what they wanted. They went back to their wheels of obsidian and wheeled them away. Slowly, their heads turned towards the two girls mechanically. "Why do you hoard? Why do you squander?" the said in a chorus. The girls were taken aback. 'Who are they to talk?" they thought. Dalila tried to explain and talk to them. The guard tells her that it's useless. "Since both groups are so absorbed in their activity," he said. " that it would be pointless to try to speak to them – indeed, they have lost their individuality, and been rendered unrecognizable."

Dalila called to them. "Beings of greatness! Come to me, and I will give the greatest information a person can get a hold on. Afterward, go tell your fends what you have learned and boast." The workers stopped and sat in a semi circle around her. The greedy children came nearest to her.

"Let me tell you a true story." she began. "There once was  man who found a magic cup. It was stunning and beautiful, a cup unlike any other. He  learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls." The people around her gasped at such magic and fortune. They leaned in closer, so Dalila continued.

"But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear." People faces were confused with her words. "So, he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow."

"What happens next?" a person called.

"The story ends with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms." She expected them to gasp at such a travesty, but she was not surprised when they did not.