Smelt

The wagons juggled cheerily along the rail tracks as the coal miners piled their day's toils on them. It was their last day on the mines as the Intelligentsia decided to close down the mines and start using the Mirrors to power industry on Earth. 

They were half empty, the wagons, as the miners did not bother to do much mining on the last day. The coal from that day will be put in Museums to remind the people of the destruction and rape of the Earth that mining brings about to the environment. 

What brought this about? Not a disaster, actually, but a benevolent message from an Angel of God, who made himself manifest on the First of May, when a small archipelago south of the Equator celebrates its day for Labourers. He showed how the planet would be if people used what God meant for them to use and harness the Sun to meet their ever increasing need for energy. And what a beautiful sight it was! Water was clean. The air was clear. Animals roamed freely. Plants grew gregariously. The vision was enough to convince the Intelligentsia to abandon the destructive forces they use to extract energy from the Earth.

At this cusp of environmental revival, the Angel of God found the Boy. He is poor, from  a family of merchants and adventurers. The Boy was lost, unable to find his place in the newly cleaned Earth, unable to find any desire in his heart  for reason or purpose. And for this reason, he was poor--poor in purpose, poor in meaning.

Meandering in the mines, he rode the wagons that used to bring the coal to the trucks that brought them to the plants where they were burned to give energy. The Angel could hear his thoughts.

"What to do? I always thought I'd be a miner. Now the mines are gone. It's not that I am unhappy that the Earth is clean again, but what will I do?"

The impish Angel, without meaning to be mean, played a mischievous trick on the Boy. He led the Curious Girl to him, who was certain to want to add him to her collection of friends. The joke was that the Boy was a real loner and Curious Girl liked to be surrounded by lots of people.

"Oh, you there! What are you doing on the wagons? Do you not know it is forbidden?" Curious Girl practically yelled at the Boy.

The Boy rolled his eyes and blew his breath from his mouth, proceeded to stand up and leave without making contact. But Curious Girl had other plans. She commanded her retinue of friends to detain him while she inspected and interrogated him.

She dusted the soot from his cheek. "Why do you stay here? It's dangerous, this place will be sealed off soon, you could have been trapped inside!" 

The Boy blew more air from his mouth and remained stoically silent. "Ah! mute are we! I shall adopt you then. I'll take care of you and you will be my new best friend. I am quite partial to your eyes, golden like a cat's!"

The Boy's eyes widened in terror as shackles were put upon him, he was being shackled to Curious Girl's wrist. "Worry not, darling Boy. We'll only use this until I have tamed you!"

He tried to speak this time, but too late. For Curious Girl has the curious power of making her beliefs into reality, and since she believed the Boy to be mute, he became so. 

The party then proceeded to Curious Girl's castle on the hill, one so opulent it made the Boy cry upon seeing it. Here, she lived with her Father, who benefited greatly from the use of the Mirrors, for he is a Mirror Baron.

While shackled to the Boy, she played the mandolin, which was her favourite instrument and pursued pleasure, much  like the Edwardians of her time.

But Curious Girl had a terrible secret, which only the Boy came to know. When everybody from her retinue was gone, she opened a chamber with the push of a book from a revolving book case that led to a smelting plant powered by coal!

Here, the furnaces turned the dirty black lumps into pure diamonds, which Curious Girl loved to collect. She found a use for the Boy by making him shovel the coal, which she smuggled before they were brought to the Museums , into the furnaces, and take out the diamonds after they have been baked and into boxes lined with red velvet, which were put on display in the secret chamber.

"Please tell no one," she would plead with him with her eyes, every time they came into the chamber as she indulged her addiction.

Soon, she lost her appetite for other people's company and spent most of her time with the Boy, whom she came to love because he did his job with such a passion and sense of purpose, it aroused a reciprocal passion in her heart. She would play the mandolin as he shovelled coal into the furnace and harvest the diamonds.

He had mixed feelings about this woman, a hypocrite in his eyes, but he felt grateful at the same time for she gave him something he can be passionate about.

One afternoon, while they were going about their business in the furnace, her Father walked in on them. To say he was shocked would be an understatement.

"What is this?! My God! Do you know what kind of damage to our name this would do?"

In the heat of anger, he pushed the two into the furnace, the Boy with his shovel and the Girl with her mandolin. The fires burned around them, but it did not consume them, for the Angel of God had not forgotten about them.

In remorse, the Father prayed to God to save their lives, and God heeded his prayer.

The Eternal Fire of the furnace died, never to be lit again, and when Curious Girl emerged she began to sound like her mandolin, her voice sweet and clear. The Boy found it in his heart to find another reason for purpose, this time building Mirrors to harvest the Sunlight with. No longer shackled to Curious Girl, he chose to stay with her  for the rest of their lives.

These days, Curious Girl sings to the Boy as he watches over her father's Mirror's in a newly clean Earth.