By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Rescued alive!!

33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days in 2010. Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche, and Lou Diamond Phillips lead a coterie of first-class actors in a new movie portrayal of the harrowing events. It’s titled, The 33.

Here is a short homage in poetry to miners all over the world who risk their lives to provide precious resources for us.  It is from Fiction House Publishing’s recent novel about coal miners, Seeds of Vengeance by Mark Rogers.

*     *     *

From the thresholds of hell, the miners emerge.

Sluggishly, worn leather boots clapping the earth,

dragging pick, axes and flat shovels –

they leave behind in the dust any hopes for the future.

Another twelve hours in the ‘hole’;

Faces, mouths, and clothes blackened with the gritty soot.

Spirits deflated from crawling like rats underground,

burrowing through areas little wider than their pain-wracked bodies;

                                                             emptying sharp coal chunks into finger-splitting railcars,

                                              hoping rotted support beams wouldn’t splinter and crush them.

©2014 Raji Singh

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.   My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)