Inspired by 1 Timothy 6:10 — “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Greed – The Inheritance
The sun beat down on the polished coffin as mourners gathered at the edge of the Kincaid family cemetery in upstate New York. Most stood in silence, heads bowed in grief. David Kincaid stood apart, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, his focus not on the eulogy but on the stack of legal documents resting atop his father’s gravestone.
He flipped through the papers, signed each one with a flourish, and handed them to his lawyer without ceremony. The whispering started almost immediately.
“At his father’s funeral?”
“No respect…”
“Shameless.”
David heard them. He didn’t care.
“He’s dead, I’m alive,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “And I need to make mine.”
A hush fell over the group, but one voice broke the silence.
“Unbelievable,” Belinda muttered. His girlfriend of two years stood beside him in a sleek black dress, her expression twisted with disgust. “You couldn’t wait one day? Not even through the service?”
David shrugged. “Time is money, Bel. The mine won’t run itself.”
She stared at him like he was a stranger. “You loved him. At least, I thought you did.”
He didn’t respond. Belinda shook her head, tears forming.
“I can’t be with someone who treats death like a business deal.”
She turned and walked away, heels crunching the gravel path. David didn’t chase her.
“Her loss,” he muttered under his breath, eyes fixed on the lawyer as he confirmed the final signatures.
That same evening, he boarded a plane bound for Ghana.
David Kincaid stepped onto the tarmac at Kotoka International Airport with sunglasses shielding his eyes and entitlement heavy on his shoulders. He wore a tailored linen suit, far too formal for the Ghanaian heat, and carried a single leather briefcase.
He barely glanced at the driver holding a placard with his name.
“Mr. Kincaid?”
“Yes. Let’s get moving. The mine’s not going to run itself,” David said without breaking stride.
The SUV rumbled through Accra’s streets and into the rural hills. Rolling green gave way to scarred red earth. By the time they reached the Kincaid Gold Company site, dusk was painting the sky with flames.
Kofi Mensah, the site manager, stood waiting by the entrance. Tall, weathered, and calm, he extended a hand.
“Welcome, sir. Sorry about your father. He was tough but fair.”
David shook his hand briefly. “Thanks. I’m not here to run a charity. I’m here to make this place profitable.”
Kofi raised an eyebrow. “We are profitable. Just not greedy. We pay our men well and work reasonable shifts.”
David surveyed the site. Miners moved slowly. Machines idled. He frowned.
“You call that efficiency? I see untapped potential everywhere. New contracts. Increased labor. Double the shifts.”
Kofi looked uneasy. “There are reasons we work the way we do. This land has history. We respect that. Push too hard, and—”
David waved a hand. “The earth talks? I deal in facts, not folklore.”
“Then listen to this fact: If you treat the land like a piggy bank, don’t be surprised when it stops giving and starts taking.”
David scoffed. “We’ll see.”
The Rise and Fall
Within weeks, David had replaced over half the local crew with cheaper labor. He brought in outside contractors, ignored environmental limits, and fast-tracked permits by greasing a few palms.
“Run it like a business,” he told his new operations manager, Ryan. “Not a history museum.”
Kofi came to him one evening, sweat still clinging to his collar. “The new tunnel you’re digging is unstable. We’ve never gone that deep.”
David sipped imported bourbon on his villa balcony. “That’s why it’s still full of gold. You afraid of a little dirt, Kofi?”
“I’m afraid of what lives under dirt that’s been undisturbed for centuries.”
David stood. “You’re fired.”
Kofi didn’t flinch. “I quit first. One day you’ll find out that not everything buried should be dug up.”
As Kofi left, David turned to Ryan. “Get a crew on that lower shaft. Round the clock. I want results.”
The mine began yielding at record levels. Investors back in New York called it a miracle. David was celebrated as a genius. Even Forbes reached out for an interview.
But below ground, tension mounted. Workers whispered of strange noises. Tools broke. Two men were injured in a small collapse. Then came the death—a young father crushed when a ceiling gave way.
The crew wanted to pause. Ryan hesitated. “Maybe we should slow down, David.”
David slammed the table. “You slow down, I pull funding. We’re so close to the motherload. Keep digging.”
Days later, they struck it. A gold vein so pure it shimmered like glass. David descended into the tunnel to see it himself. He ran his hands along the jagged, glowing wall.
“Get cameras down here. This is going global.”
A miner, Kojo, hesitated. “Sir, we should let the ground rest.”
“The ground doesn’t get a say,” David snapped.
That night, tremors shook the camp.
Kojo ran to Ryan’s tent. “It’s not safe. We need to evacuate.”
Ryan started to agree, but David barged in. “One quake and you’re all cowards? We dig at dawn.”
The next morning, the mine collapsed.
Twenty-seven men were trapped. Screams echoed through the radios. Dust choked the sky.
David stood at the edge of the pit, trembling. “Get them out! Now!”
Ryan said, “The structure’s too unstable. We need to wait for reinforcements.”
“Every hour costs thousands! Get in there!”
They tried. And the earth answered again.
The second collapse was worse. Machines folded like paper. Steel screamed. And in the chaos, David—rushing to direct the recovery from the front line—was swallowed whole.
Act III – The Reckoning
Darkness.
When David awoke, the air was still and hot. One leg was pinned under a metal beam. He couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t move.
He groped for his phone. The screen flickered, cracked but alive. No signal.
He turned the light and looked around. Rubble. Silence. A body near him. Kojo.
David gasped. “Hey… hey!” He reached out. Kojo was gone.
Panic set in. His breathing quickened. He tried lifting the beam, cried out, but it wouldn’t budge.
Hours passed. Or days. He drank condensation from the cave walls. Ate nothing.
He cried once. Then again. And again. Not from pain—from shame.
In his mind, he saw his father’s face. “You can chase gold all your life, boy. But don’t dig your soul into the dirt with it.”
He had laughed then.
Now it sounded like scripture.
In the final hours, he typed into his phone’s note app:
“If you find me, know this: I died in the belly of my god. I worshipped profit and ignored every warning. I stepped on good men to rise. Now I lie beneath the weight of what I chased. If you read this, love people, not money. It won’t save you.”
When they reached his body three days later, the note went viral.
Kofi returned to attend the burial. They didn’t bury David in the village. The elders refused. They gave him a plot on the edge of the mine, under a tree that had seen better men come and go.
Kofi carved a stone by hand. It read:
“For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
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