Once a year, the village of Seralis held a festival unlike any other. Hundreds of mirrors were placed in every alley, courtyard, and square. Each mirror reflected a slightly different version of the festival: in some, children danced; in others, merchants hawked their goods; in others still, lanterns floated silently through the night. No two reflections were ever identical.
Visitors came, marvelling at the spectacle — and soon grew frustrated. “Which is the real festival?” they demanded. “Which reflection shows the truth?”
Liora wandered among the mirrors, tilting her head, letting the light catch her eyes. She watched as one reflection danced to a tune that did not exist in the air around her, while another mirrored the crowd’s laughter perfectly.
She understood at once: the mirrors did not lie. Each reflected a local actualisation of the festival, coherent in its own space, yet irreducible to a single global scene. No reflection contained the whole; the festival was not a puzzle to be solved but a network of lived events, each valid where it appeared.
She knelt beside a small mirror in the corner, where no one else seemed to notice. There, a child’s shadow danced alone, untethered to the rest of the festival. Liora smiled. The mirror did not compete with the others; it simply existed, and in doing so, gave shape to a part of the festival that might otherwise have gone unseen.
When the villagers returned home that night, many argued over which mirrors had shown the “correct” festival. Liora walked away carrying none of their certainties, only the memory of dancing shadows, floating lanterns, and laughter refracted endlessly. She had learned what the mirrors already knew: the festival could be fully inhabited without ever being fully known.
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