David Larson - The Myth of the Anal Probe

After a very short time, or whatever time was masquerading as in this utopia, Mike could hear the soft notes of music. It sounded like a combination of reggae and a country music ballad. As he got closer he could hear the singer softly professing undying love for…

“Carrots?” Mike asked.

“Say what pard?” Bob said.

“Is he singing about carrots?” Mike asked.

They had stopped outside a large structure that looked like a giant tiki hunt. The place was filled with people sitting at several long tables. Some of them were carrying plates filled with brightly colored food through a line that was clearly a buffet table. At one end of the room the lover of carrots was sitting in front of a long rectangular board that, if it had keys, could have been an electronic keyboard. He was singing about the beauty of… water… The instrument he was playing was emitting some the most spirit-cleansing music Mike had ever heard. But the words were, for the lack of a better word, ignorant. They didn’t make any sense. And at times seemed a little, childish.

“Let’s grab a plate brother,” Bob said as he rubbed his hands together.

Mike and Bob walked up to the end of the line and Bob handed him a plate. The plate was a plate only in the sense of the word that it was round like a plate, had an edge like a plate to keep your stuff from falling off, but it was made out of something that wasn’t paper, but it wasn’t china either. It was kind of both at the same time, and neither one.

“What’s up with the plates?” Mike asked.

“Why,” Bob said with mock suspicion “did it make a snide comment to you? They can be turds sometimes.”

Mike just looked at him.

“I thought it was funny,” Bob said.

Mike just waited.

“It’s kind of like a plate,” Bob said “but it isn’t.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, “I’m getting that already.”

“You see we’ve pretty much done away with waste here,” Bob said “The plates are more of a recyclable than biodegradable. Recycling is a great concept but there’s quite a lot of pollutants that are given off into the atmosphere from the process. Also, washing dishes wastes quite a lot of water, and adds detergents back into the soils. So these plates are dumped in that hole over there.”

Bob pointed at a tube sticking out of the ground about the same size and height of a 50 gallon drum.

“There’s an electric conveyor under there that moves the dishes, flatware, cups and food where it’s all ground down to a powder. The organic material kind of separates itself, is skimmed off the top, and added to a kind of compost pile. The dinnerware dust that’s left over is pressed and polished into more stuff to eat with.”

Bob and Mike sat at the end of a long table already filled with people.

“Everybody,” Bob said waving his arm over the crowd, “this is Mike. Mike, this is everybody.”

Everyone smiled and greeted Mike, and Mike smiled back.

“So, who’s making the food?” Mike asked.

“Right now, I’m not sure,” Bob said. “We have enough people that really love to cook here and they usually stay in the job. If you wanted something other than what they’re putting out, anyone is welcomed to go back in the kitchen and make their own. Actually quite a few people do just that.”

Mike looked down at his dinner and had no idea where to begin. Everything looked and smelled excellent but nothing looked familiar. It almost did, but not quite. Some of it might have been cauliflower in a cheese sauce. If cauliflower were pink, and cheese were soft green. Some of it might have been steak. If steak were white and had no grain to it.

“What am I eating here?” Mike asked.

“Let’s see,” Bob said as he looked at the back of his bare wrist again. “I’d say you were eating dinner.”

“You are hilarious,” Mike said. “What is this?”

“Different forms of vegetables, what you’d call eggs, and some jazzed up cereals,” Bob said as he examined a chunk of something that looked almost golden on the end of his fork.

“Why is this the first time that I’m seeing this?” Mike asked. “The stuff I’ve been getting in my room up until now has been just exactly like what I would eat back on Earth.”

“We raided a Costco before we left the animal farm” Bob stopped in mid chew and looked at Mike “Sorry… I mean Earth.”

Mike raised his eyebrows and searched Bob’s face for truth.

“That part,” Bob said, “is true I’m afraid.”

“We weren’t sure how you were going to take to our diet here so we brought you a starter kit so to speak.”

Mike remembered the package of turkey jerky he had the first day he spent on this planet.

“Is there any beef,” Mike asked “or fish, pork, or glowing jackalope, or whatever in your diet?”

“Glowing what?” Bob asked.

“Never mind,” Mike said “do you people eat meat, or are you simply vegetarians.”

“Vegetarians I guess,” Bob said. “We have no concept of killing here, Mike. And in order to eat meat we’d have to kill something first. I mean, I guess you could just walk up and try to take a bite out of a pig’s ass, but I think the pig might get a little prickly if you did that.”

“Everything is grown right here and tended by the community,” Bob went on. “Everyone shares in the responsibility to grow and harvest the food. ‘Why?’ you may ask. Damn good question. Because everyone here, as I’ve said, knows the difference between right and wrong, and is simply unable to choose the wrong thing to do. Working toward the common good is right and sitting on your ass while you let others do the work is simply wrong, and consequently not even considered.”

More music with ignorant lyrics was flowing out of the ceiling and the one-man band was taking a break.

“What time do they serve meals here,” Mike asked, “and is there a limit on how much I can eat? A… I don’t know… a rationing system?”

“Eat as much as you want brother,” Bob said “over eating would be both wrong and not good for you, so no one does. But seriously, eat, your beaver shit is getting cold.”

Bob shot Mike a huge grin.

Mike put a fork full of something beige into his mouth. The taste was incredible! No, ‘incredible’ could never do it justice. As soon as whatever was on his fork hit his taste buds they exploded in culinary orgasm. His salivary glands ejaculated so hard into his mouth that it hurt his jaw. The taste was deep, and magnificent, and heady. It was like he had never tasted anything in his life. It was like he had been sleepwalking through one watered down meal after another in his previous life. It was like… like… he was coming home for the first time.

“Oh my sweet holy baby Jesus!” Mike said, “what the hell was that!”

“No pollution, dude,” Mike muttered through a mouth full of food. “No chemical fertilizer, pesticides, or whatever have EVER been introduced into this soil.

“Pretty freaking awesome, right?”

“It’s like my entire body just woke up,” Mike said.

With that the music overhead changed. There was some type of gravely mechanical techno voice repeating something over and over. Mike was pretty sure it was saying ‘ gotta make a move to a town that’s right for me .’

Bob slapped his hands down on the table and shoved his wide-eyed face into Mike’s.

“Oh my great googly mooglies!” Bob almost shouted at Mike, “is that you? Did you put that up?”

Bob grabbed the arm of the man sitting next to him and pulled the laughing man off the bench.

“Shake that groove thing brother,” Bob said.

Bob and the other man were dancing hand in hand. Bob spun his partner, pulled him back and the couple spun around the floor.