a mountain of gold

“And I laughed because everything was laughter. There was the smell of fresh earth and yellow dust, and a great pile that was a mountain of gold (like Pop is going to find); and the gold spouted downward from a pipe in the sky, falling around my head, mounting above my feet like golden sand, above my waist and shoulders. And I was looking into the man’s eyes, far above, and he was looking down into mine, and I knew that we were playing a game, that he was going to hide me beneath the gold; and I could not understand why Mom came racing across the field nor why the man’s teeth bared like a frightened dog’s. But I knew that everything was good, and I laughed.”

—Jim Thompson, Now and On Earth, 1942.