Birth Mirror

    When he looked at her, he saw the whole universe.  He saw how the atoms in her body came from the salt of the Earth and the nutrients of its growth.  Every organ had once been part of a blade of grass, a piece of dirt in the soil, or the muscle of an animal.  Before that they'd come from the sun, which had given birth to all the complex elements interacting inside her, like sodium, potassium, and iron.  These in turn were born from the splitting of the fundamental two, hydrogen and helium, that burned so brightly in its core.  Both these elements had come into being prior to a supernova that had created the sun about five billion years ago.  Even before this they'd been part of a vast cloud that had condensed into the galaxy we now call the Milky Way.  They'd done this across the whole universe, back when it had nothing but gas everywhere.  The gas had expanded and cooled after the explosion of the Big Bang, proliferating itself to all corners of the obsidian frontier.  As he looked into the woman's black eyes, he saw the constituents of the first atoms forming in deep space, after they'd been taken apart from the whole during the birth of the universe.  You could say that when he looked at her, he looked at everything else that made up the cosmos, for everything was made of the same material when the universe was born.  She was a birth mirror, a being who contained the same mysterious elements that created life before reproduction existed. 

2013 Year End Media Charts

Top Songs of 2013
Rank	Song	Artist	Plays
1	Song for Zula	Phosphorescent	127
2	Radioactive	Imagine Dragons	105
3	Fireproof	The National	79
4	Mute	Youth Lagoon	76
5	Final Frontier	Juno Reactor	75
6	All Your Gold	Bat for Lashes	72
7	Blurred Lines	Robin Thicke, T.I., Pharrell Williams	69
8	Steve McQueen	M83	69
9	Get Lucky	Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams, Nile Rogers	66
10	The Quotidian Beasts	Phosphorescent	65
11	When I Was Your Man	Bruno Mars	63
12	Sirens	Pearl Jam	62
13	Do I Wanna Know?	Arctic Monkeys	59
14	Gone, Gone, Gone	Phillip Phillips	59
15	Dear Darlin'	Olly Murs	58
16	Mirrors	Justin Timberlake	58
17	Other Side	Anberlin	57
18	I Love It	Icona Pop, Charli XCX	54
19	Let Her Go	Passenger	53
20	Love Me Again	John Newman	52
21	Hold On	Alabama Shakes	52
22	Wake Me Up	Avicii	52
23	Wicked Games	The Weeknd	51
24	Isjaki	Sigur Ros	51
25	In Your Car	Big Deal	50
26	Roar	Katy Perry	50
27	Daisyphobia	Youth Lagoon	49
28	Brennisteinn	Sigur Ros	49
29	The Last Day	Moby, Skylar Grey	49
30	Mireille	Causa Sui	49
31	Trying to be Cool	Phoenix	48
32	Sky (Tears from Heaven)	Delerium	47
33	Hurricane	MS MR	45
34	Sail Into the Sun	Gentlemen Hall	45
35	Ride	Lana Del Rey	45
36	Tunnel Vision	Justin Timberlake	44
37	Demons	Imagine Dragons	44
38	Entertainment	Phoenix	44
39	Fichelscher Sun	Causa Sui	43
40	Hey Brother	Avicii	42
41	Reunion	M83	42
42	Wrecking Ball	Miley Cyrus	41
43	Amsterdam	Imagine Dragons	40
44	Seven Widows Weep	Sirenia	40
45	Ways to Go	Grouplove	39
46	Modern Jesus	Portugal.the Man	39
47	Blue Moon	Chromatics	39
48	Trumpets	Jason Derulo	38
49	Ducere Me in Lucem	Sirenia	37
50	The Juice	Causa Sui	37
2013
Top Albums
Rank	Album	Artist	Units (M)
1	Muchacho	Phosphorescent	5.5
2	The 20/20 Experience	Justin Timberlake	4.2
3	Euporie Tide	Causa Sui	3.9
4	True	Avicii	3.8
5	Night Visions	Imagine Dragons	3.1
6	Kveiker	Sigur Ros	3.0
7	Wondrous Bughouse	Youth Lagoon	2.7
8	The Golden Sun of the Great East	Juno Reactor	2.6
9	Hurry Up, We're Dreaming	M83	2.4
10	Lightning Bolt	Pearl Jam	2.2
Top Books
Rank	Book	Author	Units (M)
1	The Light Between Oceans	M.L. Stedman	2.6
2	Far From the Tree	Andrew Solomon	2.0
3	Americanah	Chimamanda Ngozi Adeche	1.8
4	Inferno	Dan Brown	1.8
5	And the Mountains Echoed	Khaled Hosseini	1.7
6	2312	Kim Stanley Robinson	1.6
7	The Forest Unseen	David George Haskell	1.6
8	The Ocean at the End of the Lane	Neil Gaiman	1.3
9	Proof of Heaven	Eben Alexander	1.2
10	The House of Hades	Rick Riordan	1.2
Top Movies
Rank	Movie		Units (M)
1	Gravity		14.6
2	Lincoln		11.6
3	The Impossible		9.8
4	Prisoners		9.4
5	Rush		8.5
6	The Croods		8.1
7	Dallas Buyer's Club		8.1
8	Cloud Atlas		8.0
9	The Great Gatsby		7.7
10	About Time		7.6

Bavarian Magic

Magic, that marvel of metamorphosis,
Drifts down the slopes of the Bavarian Alps,
Bringing wonder to the snow-laden forests of pine,
Enriching the village nestled in its valley
With gifts of mystery and mirth.
Children skate atop horizontal mirrors
That reflect an ocean of icebergs
Waltzing westward across the sky.
Their parents watch them with faces
Animated by the frostbitten gifts,
Which had blown between the houses
As they ate strudel, drank steins and danced
In the craze of beer gardens.
Barmaids and lumberjacks jiggle to klezmer,
Serenading the winter solstice
With tambourines that cling, kazoos that ring,
Bagpipes that blare all through the air,
All below trees decorated with ornaments
That glitter like the icicles that would have hung
From them had they not been replaced.
Castles crystalized by the coldness of crags
Shine in silence as the early evening
Welcomes the stars above to the crisp countryside.
The smell of grandma’s homemade cookies
Make the children rush inside their homes,
Where the warmth of a fire wraps them in comfort
Before the evening closes its chilly curtain.
The sun is down, Christmas is coming;
Lights are buried in the mountains,
Where whirlwinds of magic
Illuminate dreams in the darkness.