The Works of Mark EdgemonEVERY ORIFICE NEEDS A STONE
The Works of Mark Edgemon from All-Creatures.org

Mark Edgemon has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts, as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.

Contact Mark through his website, Creator and the Catalyst.

EVERY ORIFICE NEEDS A STONE

Getting rich quick is nice if you can do it, but the phrase usually implies acquiring great sums of wealth with very little effort. If that is the method of study, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

However, if that weren’t a popular notion, millions of dollars wouldn’t roll in, every time there was a lottery somewhere.

An Egyptian archeological exhibit was touring through town with many interesting artifacts for the public to see. One in particular, was an ancient document believed to uncover a mysterious formula for acquiring wealth.

Having read about this ancient document in the early edition of the local newspaper, John Holiday borrowed his neighbor’s camera for the purpose of taking a snapshot of the document, so he can study it later.

After getting a very clear image of the document, he went to the library and started reading books on ancient languages that are now dead. Strangely enough, John had a hidden talent for languages. He never developed this or any other talent, because he was lazy. He always would look for the easy way to do everything he had to do in life. However in this case, a shot at sudden wealth was too much of an incentive for him to pass up.

In a few hours, he figured out the code of the language and began to decipher the ancient text. It told of a statue, thousands of years old in the central part of Egypt, hidden in a cave, miles from a large pyramid. The text stated that the statue had 8 orifices and that the seeker of wealth must place precious gems in each of the holes in the statue. The gems had to be cut in a special way and inserted in a specific manner.

A clear diamond was to be inserted into the mouth of the statue, a deep blue sapphire into the right eye socket, a bright red ruby into the left eye socket, a white pearl into the left ear, a rare pink topaz into the right ear, a black onyx into the statue’s left nostril, a green emerald into the statue’s right nostril and a purple amethyst into the statue’s navel.

The meaning was unclear why this was to be done, but John just wanted to become wealthy, so he didn’t care. After extensive research, John determined it would cost approximately 1.2 million dollars to acquire the gems and passage to Egypt. It took him 5 years to diligently create a business and generate that large sum of money.

Once he had the funds, he purchased the gems and a ticket to the ancient city of Asyut. Once there, he spent months locating the pyramid and cave that the Egyptian document had alluded to. Once in the cave, it only took a few minutes to locate the statue that the ancient manuscript had described.

He wasted no time to insert the precious stones into each hole of the statue. Right before his eyes, the 8 gems turned to stone, filling the holes leaving no trace where the holes use to be.

With great disbelief, he stared at his investment of valuable gems, now turned to stones and wondered what it all meant. Just then, at the foot of the statue, he noticed an inscription, which he could now decipher, which read, “Any fool can create wealth, but only the wise knows what to do with it.”

Was that it! John was terribly disappointed and felt he had been on a fool’s errand for the last 5 years. He returned home and resumed his business, where he continued to expand the company he founded, originally for the purpose of buying the jewels for the statue.

One night, as he sat in his new apartment in the affluent side of town, he took a look once again at the photograph of the ancient document that had started his quest for wealth and noticed for the first time, an inscription at the bottom, that he needed a magnifying glass to read. The inscription read, “If one achieves this quest, they will have transformed their mind by the use of their faith and will from then on have the power to overcome in all things and nothing will be impossible to them.”

As John looked around his luxury apartment and remembered once having trouble paying his rent just 5 short years earlier, he realized that the 1.2 million dollars he shelled out that started this adventure…was a really great investment!

Copyright © 2008 Mark Edgemon

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