The sleepy city of Pearl was once a bustling railroad and mining city. It could even be called a boomtown, established around a lonely train station at the county line all because of a coal and iron mine. We made our money by building infrastructure for other towns, crafting tools and jewelry, and finding creative ways to market coal and its products.
I lived in a beautiful, bordering on ritzy, apartment building right across from school and right next to one of the city’s best restaurants. Though this may seem like a great thing, and it usually was, it had its downfalls. On days of poor weather, the school kids would pile into the lobby and wait for a ride, or even worse, wait for the weather to brighten. Sometimes they’d even take the liberty of bringing their own toys and games and play them throughout the building. This was a nuisance.
The real nuisance though, was the abandoned mine on the other side of the apartment building. Locals were scared to death of it. It was a pit mine, dug straight down into the ground with ladders and ropes all the way down. When the town was new and most of the men were miners, the largest tunnel collapsed and killed 219 of the 300 men who worked there. The collapse made the mine into a terrifying cavern.
Legend says that if a miner’s ghost is seen at the site, the town will be destroyed. Because of this legend, people rarely walked by. Those who did shielded their eyes. This was why the outside of the apartment looked so trashy: the building management said no one ever looked at the outside of building because of the mine so why keep it looking nice?
Business people looking for development opportunities often tried to build on the mine. The projects always failed for one reason or another; bankruptcy, injuries or death, or the building was finished but crumbled into the mine. Us locals just shook our heads.
But while everyone was so afraid of seeing the ghost, I wanted to see it. My room was on the side that gave me a perfect view down into the mine. My mom had heavy curtains on all the windows so there was no chance of seeing the ghost from our room, but at night, I always untied my curtains and gazed downward. I also looked out on the city. Years before I could remember the flood of light from downtown and the constant buzz on the streets, but as the years went by, it all just faded away. The city went downhill. Few street lights, more crime and vandalism, no nightlife (all the restaurants, hotels and shops closed their doors by 10 pm), and more empty, decrepit buildings.
I secretly hoped I would see the ghost, not only for the experience of seeing someone dead, but also to give the city a chance to restart. If the ghost really caused the destruction of the city, perhaps he was just what we needed. Pearl was in great need of a revival.
I had given up on my wish after a while and stopped gazing out the window every night. I would glance, but it was always the same; the same hulk of rocks and metal, the same flickering lights scattered about the town, the same sounds of sirens and doors slamming.
By the time winter was over and mom had the itch to open up the windows for the fresh spring air, I had completely forgotten about looking out the windows for the ghost. It just became a habit to look the other way when walking home from school.
One day, though, the air was different. It was just a normal day at 4 o’clock. I was walking home from school slowly to make my time in the thick, humid, dark air last. I had never felt air so heavy. I looked up to the sky and it was covered with greenish-grey clouds that hung so low they met the top of my apartment. I rushed home and up the building stairs to go to the top to see what it would feel like to be inside a cloud. It was horrible.
There was a dense fog around me that made it so hard to breathe that I almost choked on every inhale. I couldn’t see far enough to even see my own knees. Luckily, I had only taken two steps from the door so a backed into the doorway, closed the door and breathed quickly to recover from the suffocating mist outside. I was soaked from the moisture of the clouds.
I hobbled down the stairs, careful to not slip on the polished wood. I took shelter in the bathroom of my apartment, where I turned on the hot water and thawed myself. After I felt I was adequately dry, I went to my room and opened up the curtains and cracked the window open about an inch. For the first time in a long time, I gazed out upon the mine and the city.
I was startled by a violent howl in the wind and a gust so aggressive it shook the building. I looked around, inside and outside, frantically looking for a cause even though I already knew it was the wind. I was alone in the apartment. Mom and dad were at work and I had no siblings. I panicked as the wind grew meaner by the second. I took one final look out my window before closing it and running away to the closet, but I didn’t run away. I froze.
Staring back at me was a very neat but dusty man with goggles sitting on his forehead above his eyes and a handkerchief tied loosely around his neck. He wore overalls and large boots that looked aged, but also wore new leather gloves and a pocket watch whose chain dangled from his breast pocket. He smiled and waved at me, and I waved back. He seemed normal, even kind.
This was until he vanished and I realized what I had just seen. Once he was gone, I was looking straight down into the mine where he had been standing. I had seen the Miner Ghost of Pearl.
Before I had time to process the severity of the fact that my years-long wish had come true, the building shook again at another wind gust. The sky grew darker and more sickly-looking. The wind brought with it so much rain and hail that the sound echoed all through my apartment. Even burrowed under blankets and pillows in my closet, I could hear the weather pounding the city outside.
I jumped out of my skin when I heard someone yelling my name. A fireman opened my closet door, scooped me up and carried my downstairs and into the basement. I was comforted by the familiar faces of my neighbors, but concerned that I had no idea where my parents were. I hoped they had not tried to make it home through the monsoon.
The wind and rain and hail continued to pound the building. I heard doors swinging open and windows breaking and debris damaging anything in its way. Before long, the electricity went out and we were in nearly complete darkness despite several candles and lighters. The air grew colder and wetter. A violent and frigid gust swept through the basement and knocked out the flames of our miniscule sources of light.
We heard a quiet whimpering that echoed slowly all around us. We looked at each other in fright and confusion in the black darkness. In an instant, we were all blinded by a flash of golden light. When we could see again, some lights had come back on but there was still an eerie shadow cloaked over us. A smaller, less bright golden flash told us to look at the open doorway of the stairs. The whimpering grew louder then suddenly ceased.
We all saw him, yet none of us believed he was really there. I, especially, couldn’t fathom that what I was seeing wasn’t merely my imagination. My only consolation was the shock on everyone else’s faces that assured me that they saw him, too.
Standing before us was the miner I had seen only a few minutes earlier. He bore the same pleasant grin and waved the same welcoming wave. This was the last thing we saw before the building above us seemed to fly away into the sky. We all looked up at the disgusting green sky and choked on the humid air. Dust and rubble was everywhere, coating each of us as we stared at the swirling sky that still continued to dump rain and hail hard upon us.
Someone screamed “Get down! It’s coming!”
Instead of obeying, we stood frozen. All we could do was watch as a giant made of wind and debris soared above us, taking a few people and objects with it. It seemed to jump up high then land with a devastating stomp. Its roar was louder than standing between two trains racing past you in opposite directions. Now, we did get down. We laid over each other in an attempt to find shelter from the hail and roar. No amount of hiding could accomplish this.
Almost as quickly as the golden flashes, it became still and silent. The kind of still and silent that happens in a public place when the innocent witness something they wish they didn’t see, then have to watch as the guilty escapes, a free man with nothing holding him back.
After a terrible moment of anticipation, someone ventured up the stairs. We could all see that there was little left, even from the basement; we didn’t see the tops of any of our beloved skyscrapers - but the man who went up the stairs fell to his knees and wept. “Our city is ruined!” he cried with a voice so desperate that it forced us all into tears. Even I cried. The same person that wished that all of this would happen.
I cried out of guilt and fear. Guilt was so heavy on my chest that I had to lay down because I was getting dizzy from my shortness of breath. Fear was so heavy on my mind that I couldn’t control my crying no matter how much I wanted to. I wanted to act unaffected, but in reality, I was a mess.
This destruction was my fault. I saw the miner. The worst part was that I had wanted to see the miner. I remained hysterical as I remembered that I still didn’t know what happened to my parents.
I ran up the stairs and looked around at the flattened city. Pearl was gone. Everything in sight was gone. Every home, every business, everything. I had turned almost all the way around, making sure to take in every detail, when I noticed one house standing all by itself among the wreckage.
I pointed to it and others looked in its direction. The same man who was the first up the stairs, who I had only just realized was the mayor, stared in awe. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Do you know whose house that was?” He spoke slowly, solemnly. I shook my head.
“That’s the home of the man we all saw before the building disappeared. His name was Bernard Burbridge. He was the only miner that survived the collapse - of the ones working there the day it did collapse, of course. Some people of Pearl loved the man, but others thought he was up to no good. After the collapse, he was convicted of murder because no one could figure out how he walked out of the mine with little more than a broken collarbone. Instead of serving his sentence, he was so torn up by the whole situation that he jumped head first into the mine and basically shattered when he hit the bottom. No one ever found a note so they just assumed he did it because he was bitter or remorseful. No one bothered to try to find a real reason.”
I had many questions but the only thing my body would do was walk toward the house. It was a plain one-and-a-half story house with a small porch over the front entrance. Thick lace curtains covered every window from the inside and shutters covered a few windows from the outside. It really was a quaint and comfortable home.
The mayor stepped ahead of me and opened the door cautiously. Inside, we found a perfectly untouched living room. Everything was in its place with hardly any dust to be seen. “No one has lived here since the collapse. I can hardly believe it looks this good.”
I wandered through the house, not seeing anything that seemed important, when I saw a slight golden flash come from behind me. When I turned around I saw the door to the basement open about an inch, just enough that I could see a warm light coming from down the stairs. I decided that if I could survive a natural disaster, I could survive an empty house’s basement.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw the miner standing in the corner by another door. It was a crude construction of planks nailed together, hinged by an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys. He nodded when I put my hand on the door’s handle. I opened the door, peering into the opening so I didn’t miss anything. All I saw was a tunnel. I got the mayor’s attention and he gathered some other men to go and investigate. They took a rope with them as I held the other end so they couldn’t get lost, almost like a leash.
After a few quiet moments, they came back, looking astonished. The mayor spoke first: “It leads to the mine. We found some bodies in there, closer to the end. Those missing have now been found. And I guess this proves Bernard’s innocence.” I looked back where I had seen the miner in the corner and he smiled as he vanished once again. On the shelf behind him was a note.

I apologize that my message had to come across this way. I felt there were no other options. I am innocent, and I will die innocent. I will not rot in a jail cell, but instead spend my death with the men who didn’t make it to safety. I would rather die where I should have than die a despised and hated man by my beautiful neighbors of Pearl.
Goodbye to the world that has forsaken me, and Hello to the world where I can live the life I deserve as the only survivor of the terrible incident that killed my brothers..
Bernard Burbridge

“Well, it looks like this is the end of the Miner Ghost of Pearl. We can put all these newly found men to rest as soon as we identify them, then rebuild the city from the ground up in honor of those who died all those years ago.” The people of Pearl took the mayor’s words to heart and by the time I graduated college, the beautiful city of Pearl was beautiful again, with a memorial for the miners at the heart of the city by the courthouse. A bronze wall listed every name, including those most recently found. Behind the names stood a stone statue of Bernard Burbridge that bore the inscription: “I stand in the name of Pearl and my brothers in the mine - we are a beautiful city.”