Every month I went into the ground to visit the Human Ore Petrology Institute, which had perfected a process to mine ores from mineralized parts of the human bodies. As I walked in, I spotted regulars I had seen before. There was a man wearing tortoiseshell spectacles with diamond teeth, a female singer whose vocal cords semi-regularly transformed into silver, and a pair of famous actors whose eyes were opal and topaz. Behind them on the wall was an image of the Most Famous Member of the Club, a legendary actress whose purple amethyst eyes were admired by her fans even though she had passed away many years ago.

No one was born with a mineralized body. This special physique suddenly appeared one day, usually during childhood. The researchers had many hypotheses on how this process occurred but none were verified. However, they had determined a set of general laws. Mineralized human tissues could function just like normal human tissues, except in appearance and chemical makeup. Those with precious minerals in their bodies were few. The man with diamond teeth and the lady with silver vocal cords were so rare that they were fanatically admired both inside and outside the institute.

In this way, the Human Ore Petrology Institute functioned like a club where the researchers provided services to help those with mineralized bodies maintain a normal life. For example, the researchers would make veneers and special contact lenses for those with visible ore. Many people whose body parts were made of precious minerals became rich by using their “inner treasures.” They ascended to the higher social class. As gentlemen and fair ladies, they talked about the precious stones in their bodies, regularly held jewelry salons in a velvet-floored room, and only invited the members whose bodies contained precious minerals to attend. It was like they were organizing an upper-class banquet.

I was fortunate enough to become a member of this institute because my eyelashes were graphitized. Every month I went to the institute to trim my eyelashes and see an optometrist. Then I could receive a pencil made of my graphitized eyelashes. Graphite was so common that I was naturally at the bottom of the hierarchy in the institute. The gentlemen and the ladies barely glanced at me, but I became friends with the most magical person here.

My friend was a short man about thirty years old. His neck seemed to shrink between his shoulders, his eyes bulged out, and part of his forehead sunk inward. I quickly realized he had a rare mineralization: his skull was laced with gold. This gold was not easy to access and could only be detected through sophisticated equipment. The high density of the gold made his skull heavy and unwieldy. This deformed his body. The deposits in his forehead were particularly troublesome, slumping his brow downward like a Neanderthal. My friend was living in a special room in the institute for the sake of safety. This kept his vulnerable head free from harm. It also saved him from being harassed by people who wanted to find out his secret.

My friend was very proud of his gold skull, even though it didn’t have special powers. He walked with his head high and his chest out – which wasn’t easy because his skull was so heavy. He became an outcast among the elite set at the Human Ore Petrology Institute. He lived in loneliness.

I once sent him my eyelash pencil, so he invited me to his room. That was the only place in the institute that was full of books – all about gold and bones.

As he showed me his collection of books, he said, “I should be a poet. I’ve certainly read enough poetry. Art is the noblest gold in the world and poetry is the most glorious thing in art!” I did not respond, because I do not know anything about art or poetry. He continued: “Do you know art is compared to a palace in the classical tradition? Did you know the poets in ancient Greece love exquisiteness and luxury? My skull is an exquisite, gold-made palace! I can see the supreme glory when closing my eyes!”

I do not know about ancient Greece, so I couldn’t agree or disagree. As my friend was speaking, his eyes shone with radiance. It was almost like I could see the brilliant gold in his body through his eyes. Before I left, my friend asked me to buy some new notebooks for him so that he could record the poetry etched in the gold surrounding his brain. He spent almost all his money buying books. All the corners and margins in his books were filled with his notes. 

I agreed, and I kept my promise. Every time I returned to the Human Ore Petrology Institute to have my eyelashes trimmed, I brought him a stack of notebooks. My friend cheerfully read his new poems to me. But to be honest, I did not understand a word. I was impressed primarily by the extremely high pitch and strange tone of his voice. I believed these were signs of intelligence. My friend claimed that his voice sounded that way because the bones in a gold skull were different from the ones in a normal skull. He said that when his skull turned to gold at the age of fourteen, the sounds that echoed through his head could have come from Apollo’s lyre or the voice of a Muse. As I listened to my friend’s explanation, uneasiness grew inside me. He gestured wildly. His face contorted itself into animated expressions. In many Eastern cultures, my friend explained, bones carried a noble meaning, presenting one’s spirit and willpower. Flesh symbolized the low instinct. My friend reasoned that he was superior to all other people. He thought he was the only human to enter the eternal gold palace of nobility. I listened, thinking about his dislike of the rest of humanity. I reminded him that his gold skull was of no realistic value. Any attempt to mine it might destroy him. He did not listen.

The next time I visited, I found the Human Ore Petrology Institute in a state of chaos. People were crowding the jewelry salon as my friend loudly recited his poems. He spoke boldly about his vaunted gold palace to the gentlemen and ladies.

“My gold skull is a magnificent palace and you shall not mock my ugliness! Olympus, the home of the Greek gods, was forged by the hand of the deformed Hephaestus!” The gentlemen and ladies exchanged smiles with one another. They thought my friend was a clown.

Someone joked: “Mr. Hephaestus, are you going to treat us as the Roman gods and goddesses and entertain us in your palace?”

“No,” my friend responded, shaking his head, “No, you are not qualified to enter my palace. I come to take your jewelries to decorate my palace.”

I panicked when I heard these words. Everyone in the crowd looked confused.

He continued mockingly: “Bones represent the nature of soul! Only gold bones are sacred while your jewelries are vulgar things that can only be used as filigree and ornament. Oh, look at this door bolt inlaid with rubies!”

While speaking, my friend attempted to touch a lady’s ruby-made eyes. The lady screamed with fear and several men rushed to rescue her. They dragged my friend down to the floor and began to beat him. I pushed through the crowd and dragged him away, back to his room.

I was furious. “Stop with this delusion! Your gold palace is simply a myth! It has no value!”

His eyes appeared hollow. He gazed out into the middle distance. He spoke what I recognized as names, but didn’t know the importance of: “Trakl……Jack London……Vladimir Mayakovsky……Sergey Yesenin……”.

I left my friend alone. I would not bring him any notebook or pencils next month, because I didn’t want to support his delusion.

Three days later, I was informed that the Human Ore Petrology Institute was burnt down in a severe fire. Shocked, I rushed to the institute with many other members. The institute was a secret organization, so only those in the know could handle this incident. I learned that the fire had broken out during a routine jewelry salon. The gentlemen and ladies of the salon had died of suffocation. Their bejeweled eyes were all that remained.

I asked where the fire started, and the obvious answer caused me extreme despair. The fire had begun in my friend’s room.

Maybe he had only wanted to burn all his poems or himself. But there was so much paper – so many notebooks – that the fire spread quickly. The narrow hallways allowed the fire to reach the jewelry salon within minutes. Because the Human Ore Petrology Institute had been kept secret, no fire engine could reach it.

I rushed to my friend’s room, past a door deformed by heat. As I glanced inward, I had to shield my eyes from blinding light. My friend sat on his chair with only his white bones left. His gold skull on his white bones looked like a solemn palace on a snow-covered mountain.