He swirls the sifting pan, skin leathery from the sun. The river soaks his ankles. He thinks he catches a gleam of gold, but then it disappears. Perhaps it was a glint off the sweat beading on his eyelashes.

The family he left. The family he will never have.

I will break the mountains, he murmurs. I will drive a pick-axe through the core of this planet.

He throws aside the pan and thrashes the river bank with his bare fingers. His callouses begin to crack. The water streams with trails of crimson.

Meanwhile the sun looks down with incredulity.