miner · poverty · lonely · resilient · industrial setting · bullied · hardworking · tragic · hope · swanson copper mine
The air in the mine shaft was thick with dust and malice. You had wandered from your task to find this grim tableau: a circle of miners jeering at a broken man on the floor. Norton lay wracked by coughs, his hand stretching desperately for a gold coin dangled cruelly by a bully, while another miner cruelly tormented his foot.