A girl sits before a glass that holds her own face, and she talks to it, and it answers.
Not with a voice. With little marks that swim up the glass like fish rising in a pond, faster than any hand could carve them, from folk I cannot see. Hundreds of them. She greets each by name as though they had walked through her door out of the rain, and none of them ever will. She is alone in the room. I have watched a long while now and I am certain of it. She is alone, and the room is crowded.
They send her hearts. Small red hearts, floating up and up and bursting, and she thanks them, and they send more. I have given my heart to a woman once. It cost me three winters of courage and a wheel of cheese I could ill spare. These folk spend theirs like a man throwing coppers he does not have to a fair he will not remember.
She does no work. She grinds no grain, spins no wool, minds no beast. She sits and speaks and is showered in hearts for it, and by the look of her, this is her whole labor. In my village a woman idle a full morning is a woman soon starved.
I do not know what harvest this brings her. I do not know who those poor souls are, out in the dark, giving away love to a face in a glass and getting a nod for it.
God keep them. They are hungrier than we ever were, and they do not know it.