Skylar Spent Eight Years 'Working With Energy.' The State Has Some Thoughts on That.
By Natasha Brennan | Actual Life Under Communism
Skylar Meadows had a vision board. Two of them, actually — one for her personal ascension journey and one specifically dedicated to her post-revolutionary career as Director of Community Wellness and Vibrational Arts, a role she had, admittedly, invented herself but felt confident the new government would be thrilled to formalize.
The vision boards featured a lot of amethyst. Flowing water. A yurt.
The Central Labor Allocation Committee's assignment letter featured none of these things. It featured, instead, the words Potash Mine, Sector 7, reporting 0500 hours Monday, and a helpful footnote explaining that her steel-toed boots would be provided by the state but that she was personally responsible for any lost or damaged headlamp equipment.
Skylar has asked me to tell her story. Specifically, she asked me to tell it in a way that "centers her grief and honors her truth." I will do my best.
The Revolution Was Giving Main Character Energy
For those unfamiliar with Skylar's pre-revolutionary career, a brief summary: she spent eight years as a certified Crystal Healing Life Coach operating out of a studio apartment in Portland, Oregon, charging $180 per hour to help clients "realign their vibrational frequency" using a combination of rose quartz, guided meditation, and what she described on her website as "intuitive energy archaeology."
Photo: Portland, Oregon, via i.pinimg.com
She was, by her own accounting, extremely good at this. She had 14,000 Instagram followers. She had a podcast with an average of 340 listeners per episode. She had a Patreon with eleven subscribers, three of whom were her mother.
She also had, and this is the detail that would later prove significant, no formal qualifications of any kind.
When the revolution came — and Skylar had manifested this revolution, she wants that on the record — she threw herself into it with the full force of her considerable spiritual enthusiasm. She attended seventeen rallies. She made a TikTok series called "Crystals for the Collective" that got 4,000 views. She wrote a Medium essay titled Why Dismantling Capitalism Is Actually Just Shadow Work On A Societal Level that was shared approvingly in several leftist subreddits before disappearing into the internet's vast ocean of content.
She voted yes on every referendum. She was, she will tell you, a true believer.
She believed, specifically, that the new society would recognize her gifts.
The Skills Assessment Hearing: A Tragedy in Three Acts
The Central Labor Allocation Committee conducts its assessments with brisk, Soviet-flavored efficiency. Skylar arrived for her appointment wearing a hand-embroidered blouse and carrying a portfolio of testimonials from former clients describing her as "literally a goddess" and "the only reason I survived Mercury retrograde."
The committee reviewed these materials for approximately forty-five seconds.
They then asked her what, in concrete terms, she could do.
Skylar explained the crystal healing. She explained the vibrational realignment. She described, at some length, the concept of intuitive energy archaeology and how she helped clients "excavate buried emotional sediment."
The committee member on the left wrote something down. Skylar felt a small flutter of hope — someone was taking notes.
The note, she would later learn, said: Excavation. Mining background? Check physical suitability.
The physical suitability check came back fine. Skylar does reformer Pilates four times a week and, as the committee noted approvingly, has excellent core strength. The potash deposits in Sector 7 are at a depth requiring significant physical stamina. The committee felt this was a very good fit.
Skylar did not feel this was a very good fit.
"But I Work With Energy" and Other Phrases That Did Not Help
The appeals process is, technically, available to all citizens. Skylar pursued it with the same tenacity she once brought to arguing with people in the comments section of wellness influencer posts.
She argued that her skills were being underutilized. The committee agreed that this was possible and asked whether she had any skills beyond the ones she'd listed. She said her skills were difficult to quantify. The committee said that was precisely the problem. She said the revolution was supposed to value all forms of labor equally. The committee said it did, and that mining was labor, and that she had been allocated to it, and that this represented the revolution valuing her labor very much indeed.
She tried a different angle. She explained that she was a healer and that the collective would need healers. The committee told her that the collective's medical needs were being addressed by people who had attended medical school, and thanked her for her concern.
The appeal was denied. Reporting time remained 0500 hours Monday.
Digging Deep: The Literal Years
Skylar has now completed four months in Sector 7. I spoke with her during her scheduled recreation period, which is forty minutes long and takes place in a canteen that smells of mineral dust and boiled cabbage.
She looks, if I'm honest, extremely well. The work is hard and the hours are long and she has developed forearms that her former life coach clients would have described as "powerful" and "grounded." She has not touched a crystal in four months, partly because personal decorative items are not permitted underground and partly because, she admits quietly, she no longer has the patience for them.
"I used to post," she tells me, "that you have to dig deep to find your treasure." She pauses. She looks at her hands. "I meant it metaphorically."
Her Instagram is still up, technically, though social media access is now rationed and she only logs on during her biweekly digital recreation slot. Her most recent post — uploaded before the allocation letter arrived, in those golden final days of pre-revolutionary influencer life — reads: The universe is always guiding you toward exactly where you need to be. Trust the process. Go deeper. ✨
The comments, posted by followers who have not yet grasped what has happened, are full of fire emojis and the word "queen."
Skylar has not responded to them. She has, however, read them. In the canteen, at 0430, before the shift whistle blows.
The universe, it turns out, has a very literal sense of humor.
Natasha Brennan writes about life under actually-existing communism for people who thought it would go differently. The Central Labor Allocation Committee did not respond to a request for comment, as it does not take requests.