• The rhythmic pounding of my pick against the hard rock became a vibration that riddled my hands with blisters, split open and bled as the day wore on. As the blood dripped down my arms and eventually to the ground, I wondered for the thousandth time why I had come to the Gold Mountain. I remembered the hushed conversations about amazing pay, plentiful money, and fine clothes. I laughed to myself quietly, thinking of the irony. A split second before I heard the crack of the whip, I knew I would pay dearly for that little laugh. The pick fell from my hands as the lancing pain sliced up my spine. The man who held the whip yelled his strange words at me and smiled broadly. He flicked his wrist over and over again until I stopped counting. My mind, along with my vision, was filled with a fiery red pain, but what frustrated me the most was that I could do nothing about it. The ringing of the other men still laboring on, the crack of the whip over and over, and the shouts of the men around me became too much, and I slowly slipped into unconsciousness, hoping that I would not wake up.