The Downturn

I wrote this to MiningNews.net, in response to their call for the subscriber's perspectives on the industry downturn. And in response to the shrivelled-up, self-pitying rubbish they'd printed until that point in time. Of course, they didn't run with it. Humourless morons!

From where I am, out in the crucible of Cue, where the desk-bound fear to tread, there are no signs of a slowdown, nor of nervous speculation or self-pity. There are signs only of heavy summer rain, pock-marking the dust – the dust that holds dormant life, the dust that tingles when it lines my nostrils, the dust that tastes of anomalous gold when I lick it with fervour.

Show me your lousy balance sheet, Mr Managing Director! Show me your frayed suit and the tears diluting your coffee – yes, please do! And then I’ll show you rock, a great big boondy I smashed from an outcrop just this afternoon; a stone you can cradle while I lecture you on its formation and deformation and alteration and just what that rock means for you and your precious company. Resist me then, my good man. Say no to that last-chance drillhole then!

Far from crush me, the slowdown has cleansed my sinking spirit and honed my geological sword to a micron edge. Give me your project and I’ll carve the fat from it with a few choice strokes. If there’s any meat left I’ll hand it back to your overpaid secretary on a platter, the flesh still quivering lightly. If there’s no flesh remaining then all you’ll get back is a blood-spattered tray. And as your wife laments your soiling of her best pewter-ware, perhaps you should lament not hiring me before you paid top dollar for that miserable tenement.

But enough shouting now. I am the sanguine geologist. I am the camouflaged gecko. While many scatter from the swooping wedgie, I lie still. My heart beats slowly and my belly is warm against the dirt. If I am picked off, then so be it. At least I am out here, trying to find some gold – out here, where our kind belong.