There is a golden age that one acquires when one strikes it rich– it has nothing to do with age, though it takes considerable time to get there. He wonders when his time will come– when the well– the fountain of youth and abundance the ancients searched for will spring forth– some searched for a golden city in the Americas, and we search for oil. The black breath of life harkening an industrial age like the ancients could not imagine– a dream for which the oil man toils until it sits burdensome on his chest, a lump of gold– a beauty and a curse he yearns for with passion, for what could it afford him but good things? A life without work or care? He sees others achieve that golden age, yet rich, they seize and seize until the well dries up. What can he do but still work? It is all he knows.
Dawn breaks. The foreman has already begun the toilings of the day. What does the soul do with futility? How long can it stand? His father died having lived a disciplined life of honor and diligent work run fruitless into the dirt. Are we all destined to live like our fathers? Is the system not broken in favor of those already rich– rich like their fathers and their fathers before them?
It looks like rain today. The oil man sighs. Is life only a transient walking into a bar and leaving the check unpaid?