"So this is it..." He rubbed the nugget between his fingers deep inside the dark cave. "What will I do now? It's over..."
No more gold. No more high living. No more successful man of the world. No more pretending. No more Mr. Big Shot. The charade was over.
He slumped down in the mine's darkness, overcome with despair. His gold had been all he was. Back to nothingness. Back to being a nobody. Back under his rock.
"I can show my face never again."
He was thinking of the haunts he'd frequent as a big shot, buying drinks and friendships into the night. But him showing up without his gold? He'd not get the time of day - just as before he came across the mine.
"I guess things have returned to their natural order. It's a relief in a way. I can go back to being a nobody. Living that lie was a chore. They really thought I was making it on my own! But I wasn't making it on anything I had on the inside, just what I found on the outside. I knew this day would come. Damn!"
With a clean departure he could maintain his illusion. "Where did Jennings go? Haven't seen him in ages!" "Oh, he got tired of us and went on to bigger and better things, no doubt." Probably best to move to another city, to begin as an unknown the rest of his days. If only there were a way to live without the gold.
He couldn't help playing the big shot. He knew it was a lie but what a glorious lie! It certainly had made his personal life more unpleasant needing to keep people away from his golden illusion machine. But at least he had a revered public persona, like he was really somebody to be respected. That was a hunger that dogged him his entire life. To be respected for himself, that was the gold he truly desired. Having faked his way in the door made that hunger all the more painfully obvious.
He'd learned a great deal about people along the way. Amazing how many are frauds too! From his purchased perch of reverence, they showed their true faces to him. They too lived for their public persona, unable to see through his phony facade. A true person of substance would have called him out. There were a few he knew who watched in disapproving silence. They would know the true reason he could show his face no more. Loser.
Jennings wondered how he'd fare going back to his old life. "I never should have stuck my neck out like that!" Even if the old crowd maintained an unknowing respect for him in his permanent absence, what does that mean? What value does it have? Nothing - other than one more shoe waiting to drop. But his lies were all he had - and all he hoped to have.
"I can take this last nugget and tell them I closed a big deal and when I disappear I'll be a legend in their minds forever. At least someplace in the universe I'll be well thought of, however mistaken it might be."
