I can see nothing. I can feel nothing. I can hear nothing. It has been like this for the past forty five thousand years, but that all changed on August 26th of last year. I started to feel heat; the pressure was getting greater and greater. I felt as if I was carrying the weight of the world. And it began to get hotter, and hotter, and hotter, until I just couldn’t handle the heat or the pressure. I needed to change. I started to feel different as if I were transforming. Everything stopped. No more pressure, no more heat, no more change. Who I was, finally became crystal clear to me.
I am a Diamond.

Ever since my conversion I have been sitting here in the mantle of the earth doing absolutely nothing. Until one day I started to feel heat again, and a noise. Like a low rumbling sound, it started to get hotter and hotter and I felt as if I was moving upwards and up and up and up. There it was daylight. I shot up into the sky a long with other pieces of molten rock and lava. Landed in a river with a splash, never to be seen again. Well, at least not until a thousand years later.

I started to hear a small tapping sound. Maybe I will be free again. Ever since I landed in this river I have been covered with sand and rock. I don’t even know if the river still has water in it. The tapping got louder and louder, I started to feel a small vibration every time the sound came. The sounds got closer, and closer louder and louder. I started to feel it more and more. Until suddenly, I felt a drift of air come through a small hole near me. But that airflow was abruptly clogged by what seemed to be a human finger. It touched me and tried to grab me. The hole widened, and widened until I was finally freed. A small child picked me up and ran to his father. I was rattling in the child’s hand, banging against his two palms clamped together. He then opened his hands to his father. The father looked at me in disgust. He scolded the boy. All I could hear him saying, “This is all you give me?! I give you food, shelter, water and all you give me is a lousy stone in return?!” The father then threw me about fifty feet away from where I was originally buried. I landed with a splash. All I could see was brown, murky water. I laid there for the next hundred years or so.

I started to feel as if I was being picked up, along with other stones and gravel. I was poured into a bowl with mesh holes at the bottom. A man started to shake the bowl. A lot of the other stones and sand fell out of the holes. After a minute or two of shaking, myself and another reddish stone were the only ones left in the bowl. As soon as the man saw me he immediately started to sweat. His eyes connected with me and he realized; I am his future. I am his ticket out of Sierra Leone.

He then picked me up and tucked me in between his fingers. I can still smell the blood and dirt on his hands. He then continued working. After about a minute or so the slave master yelled, “STOP!” He walked over to the man who had me in between his fingers and said, “Give it to me”. The worker handed me over to the slave master. As soon as I was safe and secure in the hands of the slave master he shot the worker in the chest.

The slave master shoved me deep into his jacket pocket. For about twenty minutes all I could hear was yelling and screaming. I looked around the pocket and saw a bloody knife, a nine-millimeter bullet, and another stone much smaller than me. After what felt like an eternity, the slave master took me out of his pocket and laid me on his table. The room was dimly lit and loud African music was playing the background. The slave master was drinking what seemed to be whiskey and smoking a cigarette. The smell of smoke and alcohol filled the air. He looked at me in desire. He knew what I was worth. Two young men entered the room and the slave master swiftly placed me into his pocket once again.

The night turned to day and I was on the move. I peeked out of the pocket to see horror. The slave master and his gang were massacring a poor village in Sierra Leone. I saw a young child soldier shooting another boy his age. I saw men being asked, “Short sleeves, or long sleeves?” I have never seen so much horror in my life. Blood, bodies, and cries for help were all I could see or hear. I was horrified I crept back into the pocket and fell asleep.

The sound of a deep voice woke me. I heard a man asking the rebellious slave master if he had the diamond. Assuming he was talking about me, I moved all the way to the end of the pocket. I then saw the rebel’s fingers enter the pocket. His fingers picked up the smaller diamond next to me. I heard him place the diamond on the table and the other man saying, “No, I heard you have something much bigger than this. I heard that you have a stone the size of a bird’s egg.” The slave master then placed his fingers into the pocket and fumbled his fingers around me. I hear the other man yell, “Give it to me!” The slave master put me on the table. The other man then placed a key on the table and said, “This key is for a storage room in the town next to us. It is filled with weapons and booze. Take what you want.” Then, the man picked me up off the table and threw me into a suitcase a long with a pistol and a stack of documents that looked like they were some certification for diamonds. I then realized, I was about to be sold.

The seller picked up the suitcase and threw it into his car. I could hear the engine rumbling and I could smell the gas leaking out. The car came to a stop. The man took the suitcase and brought it into a building. He opened the case up and I finally saw daylight again. The man was talking to another man about a business deal and how I am worth just about five million dollars. The seller looked very pleased. The man who bought me gave over a check for five million dollars. And the seller took the check and mumbled under his breath, “Looks like I just bought me two tons in weapons.” The buyer quickly took me into a back room where I was inspected with a magnifying glass. The man looked extremely pleased. He then placed me on the table and signed a bunch of documents that were also given to him by the rebel. He then stamped the document twice and put me in a case. I soon started to fall asleep.

I awaked by a loud horn. I looked through a small hole in my case just to see that I was on a boat. I had no clue where I was going or why I was on a boat. After many hours of looking outside the boat, watching the waves go by the boat came to a stop. Two young men lifted me off the boat and threw me down a ramp where I was finally reconnected with land. I was then out onto a loud truck that read, “FedEx”. I was nervous and scared. What is a FedEx? Will it hurt me? These questions bombarded my mind. The truck came to a loud stop and I was lifted off the truck and given to an older man with very fine spectacles. He took me inside and laid me down on a board. He stared at me for a very long time before doing anything. He got a cloth and started to spray me with what seemed to be some type of toothpaste. He then got a toothbrush and started brushing me. I started feeling clean and clear. He then placed me down on board and started up a machine. I was very excited because I felt as if I was becoming new again. But this was nothing to get excited about. A fine ray of green light appeared form the machine. It got closer, and closer and it started to touch me. I have never in my life felt so much pain. It was cutting through me; there was nothing I could do.

When all the pain stopped the man picked me up and blew lightly on my exterior. He took a flashlight and shined it on me. Light filled the room the light bounced off me and radiated throughout the whole room. He then sprayed me one last time, and I felt as good as new. He then packed me up and shipped me to New York. I was picked up and brought into a store that read, “Tiffany & Co.” Another man then picked me up and placed me into a ring, “A perfect fit!” he exclaimed. He then started to pour hot liquid platinum over my bottom to melt me into the ring. I didn’t mind due to the fact that I have experience much hotter things (the lava and the laser). He placed me in a window along with a bunch of other diamonds in necklaces, bracelets, and even earrings.

The very next day, a woman by the name of Michelle Obama picked me up and put me around her finger. She looked at me and said, “wow that is a beautiful diamond”. She bought me and took me home with her.

To this day, I sit on Michelle Obama’s finger and nobody knows my history. Mrs. Obama thinks she is wearing a normal, one hundred and ten karat diamond around her finger. Mined in some African country that is terror free. But she is wrong. She does not have just any ordinary diamond around her finger. She has a blood diamond.