Finny

    Finny had been working in the desert for 35 years. As he got older, the days were getting longer and hotter. Finny was committed to his work. He had gone in every day looking for new ways to make it better for everyone on the job site. He worked his way up from helper, all the way to digger. He operated and oversaw the complex machinery within his section of the mine. There were a few ways to get to underground ore: You could blast the earth away and sift out the good stuff. You could dig tunnels underground and be among the rocks, digging out the good ones. Or, you could dig big trenches, and send the rocks and soil up a conveyer to a breaker that ground the rocks into smaller rocks. Special magnets and chemicals would then take out what could be sold and discard the rest. Finny preferred this type of mining. He grew up in the desert and always needed to know where the sun was, so going underground was out of the question. As for explosives, his prior criminal history precluded him from working them. So he manned his digger for 10 hours a day.

    For the last 35 years, Finny has been digging up Zinc. A wonderfully useful metal used in vitamins, car parts, computers, toys, gas pumps, scientific tools, and weapons to name a few. The key that Finny uses to start his machine every day is made of a Zinc-Brass alloy. As Finny worked his machine, he imagined all of the places the Zinc from this load of dirt would travel. All of the lives and places that his work would touch. This was his version of daydreaming.

    It was starting to get dark when his radio crackled: “Finny, shut her down. We’ll do some busy work and head home.”

    Finny filled out his paperwork for the day (number of loads, the weight of each load, equipment maintenance logs, etc.) and hopped in his truck to head home. His blue 1979 Ford F150 rattled like an empty paint can and he bounced out of the mine’s parking lot. As he pulled into the driveway, he noticed that the kitchen light was off. He’d normally leave it on for his dog, Jake. Jake greeted Finny at the door like someone greets their brother whom they haven’t seen for a decade. Finny fixed Jake’s dinner, then his own, and the two of them retired to the living room to catch up on their shows.

    From the outside looking in, Finny didn’t have what society deemed as "success". But he saw it very differently. He had what society didn’t: happiness.