Mirror Economy
(2019, jayy dodd)
In the era Z17y, in the Ceemi (see-me) Galaxy, on the planet Lukeer (look-here), the cost of Bind remains peak commodity. The mineral, known as BOUND in its purest form, is nested just below the topsoil across Lukeer's varied landscapes. Mined most often near the opaque apathetic oceans, Bind reduces to a most iridescent & saccharine mauve color. Almost every life begins with a mirror & every mirror is made with Bind. Parallel myths from across Lukeer tell of the first mirror. A gift from the same supernova that sprung the Beings into being. A sky of meteoric promise rained lavender fire & smelled of cerulean cedar. A perforated planet now imbued with intergalactic reflectomancy.
The process as told: take the amber earth, burn with lilac heat, form into a dynamic surface, coat in Bind, wash & wash & rewash. Add The Slick & let dry in arid air. The Slick, the penultimate ritual gesture, was made from compacted metals liquefied from onyx found on the seafloor. The Slick, the true reflective agent was useless alone. It is difficult to adhere to its matter. The Slick was readily available yet tedious to maneuver. Bind miners, Slick welders & Birth Givers were the most skilled jobs across the globe.
Every Quadrant had its own quota system for mirrors. In the Anglar Quadrant, where inhabitants have best views of at least 2 moons an era, each Being is granted a maximum of 3 mirrors in possession at one time. In the Radial Quadrant, where the atmosphere never fluctuates beyond a 10º range, no one Being can have more than one personal mirror & a maximum of 3 shared mirrors. New mirrors desired after birth must be made from recycled mirrors & Bind & Slick waste. Most Beings kept their mirrors hidden away & protected; to be melted & passed down. Those who could afford it carried shards with them around. Flash tokens of shatterable wealth.
Another myth that sprang more sporadic than the origin of reflection, was that of Bind's scarcity. MegaMirrorMakers wanted the economy to reflect their frames only. Planetworkers knew the truth. They found Bind in the roots of their herbs & indolent vegetables. They washed the mineral into large vats, drying them under the chartreuse sun, collected the dust. Young Beings washing in caliginous reservoirs, collect rocks cradling slivers of Slick from beneath their toes into handwoven baskets held together by knots.
Planetworkers believed in ancient reflectomancy, the most urgent & material ways to see. They believe the surfaces were more than reflective but outrospective. That mirrors could reveal parallel histories & impossible nows. It was believed the balance of this universe existed between the panels of this world & its own face.
So in the era Z17y, in the Ceemi Galaxy, on Lukeer, the last Planetworkers began making a great mirror. A final mirror to reset the world. Somehow the infinite possibility of refraction had left Lukeer fractured & dying. Bind Miners were known to cough out putrid translucent dust just a year after working beneath the ground. Slick welders can train for years to cultivate the craft of mastering the malleability of the material all to lose a limb in the delicate compacting process. Birth Givers, who were not Planetworkers also, had to rely on the shifting Mirror economy to keep their clinics open. Lukeer had run its course. It had seen all it needed to see. The Beings had overexposed the land & mirrors were getting increasingly mired. The Planetworkers believed breaking the great mirror would be a reset. A seven-year retrograde back to clarity.
During the hottest months of the year, Planetworkers from all over Lukeer descended on the Concave Quadrant to fill a largely unencumbered crater with fire. The heat materializes the impacted amber ground into a vague sheen. Liberated Bind miners pour eons of Bind elixir into the crater. The varied Binds from all over the globe, effortlessly coalesce in the indented occurrence. The surviving Slick welders mix in shrouds & shrouds of the mix; using large fans to level the soon to be a reflective surface.
It takes 17 aftermoons for the mirror to form. The Planetworkers who have been fasting during the day around the craters rise for the commencement. Just as Lukeer attempts its Z17z trace around the Cloak at the center Ceemi galaxy, the remaining Planetworkers hum on the lowest frequency possible. The great mirror breaks into infinite pieces. The Planetworkers all liberated from Lukeer metastasize into galactic rock. The rest of the planet exhales having received its final look.