The territories themselves were myriad in origin and objective, sometimes founded by vanished children who left their homes to escape subjection at the hand of a foreign enemy (convex settlements); sometimes as a sequel to domestic disorders, when the losers in internecine battles left to form a new family elsewhere (rear view settlements); sometimes to get rid of surplus population, and thereby to avoid inward convulsions (concave settlements); and sometimes as a result of ostracism (one way settlements).
Far from being an incidental exodus or mere series of unrelated migrations, the Mirror Colonies had historical value as they marked a decisive turning-point in the development of the continents, acting as a societal land bridge from East Hestian culture, which was often characterized by illusions of domestic coherence and continuity, to the increasingly perceptive communities of West Themis, where a discrepancy of conceptual outposts and unresolved personal settlements was considered necessary to inhabit a distant identity or resurrect the dead one called ‘home.’
They said our reflection was not the ideal shape to make a lens, but it was the simplest form to which glass could be ground and polished.
If my body was off-axis when the curvature was chosen, then the coma always came. It was a common symptom of the migration, no matter what mirror they used to let me in. I made a comparison when I had Jillison's eyes. I watched them piece together parallels until I was two points of a decomposition, a profile in off-white, dampened and shedding.
Jillison told me they were looking for the point where the selves lose step with each other, they were trying to detect the smallest unit of "identity". She said it was an sort of old fashioned experiment where they didn't know what the result would be.
I crossed my fingers, walked with a crutch, kept the window open. I knew a kind of ghost lived in the hypothesis. I caught them staring at a capillary and calling it a certain ripple, I saw a still life disappearing on the inner corner of each hand.
Jillison spilled water for luck, painted pebbles with circles and crescents. I kept the reflection indoors to keep the local climate away. On the colonies every shelter was separated by silt and sediment and still consisted of a standard infinity. Jillison said they were a collection of lost and founds fit for forgetting us. I pulled at my spine like it was a page from a book, and tried to guess which place would hide it best.
The coma didn't leave me all at once, but slowly withdrew into a level of living interference. The only distinguishing figures being diffraction and refraction. The ripples on the mirror showed up as shadows underneath the house.
I wasn't asking for a habitat of aftermaths. I wasn't stacking the floors with wood and kindling. I limped toward the colonies, struggling against the leftover senses that covered me. I didn't know what was a short term effect and was evidence. My reflection was always a step slow, and Jillison told me to leave it there, stopped and exposed, another stillborn stolen from a long time ago.
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