By Michael A. Clement
Nobody attended the gold panner’s funeral except the gravediggers. They set the granite tombstone on his grave beside the gentle stream where he’d spent decades prospecting. The epitaph, inlaid with fool’s gold, read:
As gold is tested by fire,
A man’s soul is tested by failure.
At night, the prospector’s ghost still pans for gold.
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Michael A. Clement was born and raised in San Diego, California. He spent most of his career in financial services. Since 2006, he has lived in Hong Kong. Now retired, he writes science fiction as a hobby. He has self-published several books on Amazon. You can find him online at: http://www.facebook.com/Michael.A.Clement.Books