BELLRAM V01 - Ambivalence of Light and Shadow I

BP001-P21 - Orange Juice 1

By now it was dusk and the sky above the dome was already slightly dark.

Meia was alone and could have a look around in peace. But of course, the huge tree remained in her focus for the time being.

She went down a small flight of steps, between two tables, up to it, as close as she could get, all the way to the round stone base. This alone was already up to her hips. First she looked at the roots, because the trunk was still too far away. Even if she leaned on the pedestal and stretched out her arm, she could not come close to reaching it. For that, she would have to crawl all the way up onto the base. If she did, she could lie full length between the roots, that is how big the tree was. The whole piece had to weigh tons. This fake tree was almost twice as tall as the real tree at her house. Normally she would like to touch it. The finely worked texture of the bark looked very inviting to run her hand over it once. However, the fear of accidentally breaking something was greater than the desire and so she limited herself to looking. When she looked up at the tree, she could see the early evening sky through the glittering crown. Almost automatically, her mouth fell open in amazement. The sight was surreal and indescribably beautiful. This was because krystafei had another special property, without which the tree would not be half as impressive. It was the property that had made it coveted and famous.

It glowed.

The tree in front of Meia gave off light. It reached every corner of the room and shone out from the top of the dome.

Krystafei had the property of absorbing and emitting light. In itself, this would not be a reason for excessive enthusiasm. There were several such minerals. Krystafei, however, had an extreme efficiency that pushed the limits of physics to the breaking point. It was enough to let a lamp made of it come into contact with sunlight for only a few hours and you already had a light above the level of an oil lamp for a full night. Coloured by the mineral, it was also a pleasantly warm light. Because of this property, the fake tree also had to be under a glass dome. It needed the sunlight to shine.

Nevertheless, the tree was only glowing dimly at the moment. If it were already deep night, Meia would suspect that its light was slowly coming to an end. The real reason, however, was different. Krystafei only ever emitted its light in proportion to the existing darkness. The darker it became, the stronger it shone. Unfortunately, it included all light sources, not only sunlight. If Meia lit an oil lamp, the tree would become darker. If the tree were made of two pieces instead of one, even then it would be darker in the room than it is now. Any light that did not belong to a whole was an alien source of light. So if you hung a lot of krystafei lamps in one room, you would end up with a weaker light than with just one. Simply put, krystafei only shone strongly when there was not much of it present. Why it was like that, Meia did not know, and perhaps no one did.

If the tree was really made of two pieces and they were moved far enough apart, the light output would be about the same as it was now. However, you would no longer have the same illumination. Due to these characteristics, it often required precise planning in the positioning and size of the lamps to illuminate a room evenly. But there was also a trick that made it at least a little easier.

If Meia were to throw a blanket into the treetop from the upper circular path, the free part of the tree would shine more strongly than it did now. The krystafei would make up for the loss of its surface. Krystafei was strange. It always tried to maintain the same light level in the immediate vicinity of its whole.

In summary, krystafei glowed depending on the darkness, its volume and its surface.

Apart from the complicated handling, it had other disadvantages as well.

It only works after contact with sunlight and therefore not in rooms without windows. If you still wanted to use it in such a room, you had to take the lamps off to charge them.