she saw Notou Mound, backlit by the moon. Set on the hill, the ocean breeze and sweet scent of the trees made the lavvy’s aroma more than bearable, though not necessarily pleasant.
When Ravno finished, they both walked to the base of the hill and rinsed their hands in a dark creek that ran its last legs to a nearby canal. They kneaded fistfuls of sand between hands to clean the soil from their fingernails and palms. Keba walked Ravno to his pack in Mara then looped back up to where her and her saudara lived in Phoyara City. Most of those in the communal building were asleep or near it, her own saudara’s frame rose and fell with the rhythms of slumber. The moon’s branded face was visible through the open wall and tree branches, and wispy clouds flowed in front of the stars. She sighed out heavily as she lay on her bunk; concern lay in her heart. Each face of the family, with their cauterized tubes of life and marked necks, was branded in her mind. Ravno’s face, with his different views, gentle eyes and soft blackened ears, was branded in her heart. How to quench the Ammit’s fire? How to dodge Amorino’s arrows?
‘Dream sweetly, my saudara.’ Her mind drifted from the day’s events and sought vainly for her parents and their third child, wherever they might be.
The second historia forum and the ancient system of muh-nee
All was well on Lurruna, depending who you asked. A certain family of five huddled in an exhausted, dusty pack in Phoyara City—all was not well for them. A young woman’s saudara shook off sweet sleep later than he expected, but to no great consequence—all was perfectly fine for him. And seven others, fine or not fine, carried on with their day as the day preceding the full moon carried on with or without them. Once those seven settled at Pelajaran, Mr. Sunshine launched into what he called the Issue of Payment for Work and the ancient System of Money.
‘The ancient values were strange indeed,’ Mr. Sunshine began. ‘Muh-nee topped the list by many accounts as the highest form of value. They invented muh-nee to keep, compare, or trade power. They made muh-nee out of papyrus and suddenly that papyrus, which only recently kept a list, could buy or sell a country.’ The porter knew he had already lost the interest of some around the circle. He tried to redirect the important discussion around tangible concepts.
‘Instead of sharing knowledge they tended to sell knowledge. So depending on the motivations of who bought what, “knowledge as commodity” ruled over “knowledge for community.” Because pricing was based on time spent and demand for the product, some people could only afford up to a certain quality, so there became a tiered system of excellent, to good, to bad quality—and the junk and waste that came with it.’
Ravno observed Mister’s hair of crows and wondered how he kept them all in line there above his head, as the porter again stood to bolster his point and let his hands loose to the sky. ‘Compare this with the entry-level products made by those who are still learning their work in our own system,’ Mr. Sunshine said, ‘which is to be expected. We forgive them and laugh with them about their mistakes and use what we can and reuse what we can’t. But the ancient’s system also came to rely on the act of people buying. It became the natural rhythm of things, and so product design adapted to its provisions of mass quantity with inferior quality.’
‘Why would they build something with inferior quality?’ Yolotli asked.
‘First of all, it cost less to build,’ he said, ‘securing more of a profit right away. Secondly, once the product broke, the people had to buy a replacement.’
Mr. Sunshine turned to a woman he knew built botos farther south on the Olive Fork canal.
‘Can you imagine, Bapor, designing a boto to come apart at the seams and necessitate the navita to get a new one from you? The navita’s time spent rowing, which, in the old system, translated into this muh-nee, would be spent on her new boto and force her to spend more time rowing. It would encourage you to spend more time designing just when the seams fall apart. This erroneous partnership relied on everyone to keep buying—to keep spending their time. And, to add to the irony, since people needed muh-nee so badly,’ Mr. Sunshine shook his head sadly, ‘they worked hard for the majority of their lives to save enough to be paid and not work when they were older. The old were promised a paradise though their bodies often failed them before they reached the apparent reward. It’s comparable to the afterlife of some belief systems and the way they were instructed to plod on with the promise of something greater. Remember how we discussed, in the first quarter, people’s hope of spending time with The Just Cucumber?’
‘I’ve been looking for it but I can’t find it anywhere!’ Tap-tap.
‘Right, keep looking Aron. Some ancients advise for you to start looking within yourself.’
Those around the circle laughed as Aron held his capa open with both hands and peered searchingly down at his chest.
Mr. Sunshine continued his oratory. ‘They put a price on everything: Things they made, like botos, deeds they did, like deliveries, objects like minerals and rocks, but particularly minerals—even water.’
Payudara couldn’t believe that. ‘Ha! How could they gather muh-nee for water? It’s all over the place.’
‘Well, if people valued it, or even if they didn’t, they charged for it,’ Mr. Sunshine said. ‘Even people became objects on the budget….’
Ravno blinked purposefully, pressed his eyelids down and rolled his eyeballs back. Was it just the new words he found boring and demotivating, terms of old that hardly applied to the present? He questioned Surya and Muna’s obsession with these discussions and the way they convinced him to attend. Even so, it humored him to see the porter’s expression impacted by the very words he spoke and the way he lost control of his arms throughout the lecture.
‘The richest had to make the biggest sacrifice with systemic change because they owned the most—and they were also the ones with the biggest influence—and so no change happened.’ Mr. Sunshine looked past his shoulder to find his seat and let his limbs rest, momentarily.
‘To understand their dedication to profit, consider this: People all across their infinite world owned properties in other lands but didn’t use the properties themselves. They rented them out to others and collected the muh-nee. It all makes sense from an investment and economic perspective, but not for the interests of fostering community, growth, and connection—but we’ll talk about community another time.’
As he stood to his feet once more, Mr. Sunshine described the excuses for big companies to stall reformation. They came up with sub systems like poison offset paybacks and hollow environmentally focused strategies. He explained that this invoked people to put up with the system for longer, prolonging the profit. The companies became experts in convincing people of a need for new products and fostered the product-dependence soon after. Rather than pooling resources and specialized knowledge, competitors beat out someone else who had a great idea to share. Since the ideas encroached the profit margin, the competing contributions were squashed like berries on a summer path.
‘There was an exploit called prostitution,’ Mr. Sunshine said.
Ravno stopped listening and thought more about the significance of switching. He worried that there had been two days without activity since Kar in the mercato. Had the moon set on his time as an undefined, mythic creature that people would be unable to relate to? Or did the elusive sacred step remain, but behind a cloud of his own uncertainty? Again, how could it be used? He became frustrated with the question marks echoing around his skull and wished he could simply use the skill and forget all the banter. As his attention returned to the group, he found the same tenacious topic at hand.
‘Companies identified the weaknesses of their potential customers to prey on them ruthlessly. They called it marketing. They tore indiscriminately at people’s consciences, vanities, and fears, snatching away whatever people had to give. Trust diminished as the promise of goods often differed greatly from the actual goods acquired.’ Mr. Sunshine looked at them gravely and said, ‘Remember, this disgusting behavior is not a
t all surprising in their context, with their sickness. Their sickness was profit.’
Mr. Sunshine let that thought germinate in the minds of the seven. He continued quietly, ‘Doubtless, they could never believe that we exist without a muh-nee exchange system, as it was so vital to their everyday life. They could surely not comprehend our commonality and deep-seated community from surviving the Ada Era. They did have their own instances of enduring mass trauma, but they forgot all about their commonalities and went ahead hating anyways. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll talk about this in the next moon.’
With that he turned swiftly and walked out of the circle. The cohort sat motionless under his lingering words. By the next moon Mr. Sunshine had meant the end of the next month, bulanau, and the new moon that would usher in bulanost. He left so quickly he forgot to give a hint of the more imminent topic of relationships in the next session.
Switching is not sacred
Muna crouched in a cluster of plants. His hands palpitated, picked and packed peppers in woven red cedar baskets to put on the trailer for Ravno to bring to the city. His round face and freckled nose was poised in the sun as a basset hound confronting the hunted; the poor peppers