Story: Boiled In Salted Water

As the broadcast and print industries became owned by fewer and fewer multinational companies, all media gradually mutated into vegetable entertainment. As it turned out, it was not a big change. Cultural industries had been pumping out vegetable art for years, but on a smaller scale.

Vegetable art did not hurt or challenge anyone. The only solutions serious dramas suggested were to accept. Increasingly, the audiences of vegetable media turned into veggie people. They continued to work, and often were more productive.

Eventually the real vegetables took control. The veggie people did not care. Corn turned into politicians while onions frequently became entertainers (they could make people cry). Vegetables ruled society and everyone acknowledged that to be a vegetable was to achieve society’s highest goal.

Veggie people encouraged their children to spread out, depending on the climate and soil conditions (bananas in Alaska were tragedies in the making). Dead veggie people were conveniently turned into fertilizer. It was not much different from before, except there were no coffins.

Eventually, as the roles completely switched, the vegetables began to eat the people. Vegetables especially enjoyed people after they had been boiled in salted water until nice and soft. The veggie people chosen cooperated fully. We like ourselves properly prepared for those who eat us.

Victor Schwartzman
victors@mts.net