I used to eat my veggies.
I liked all of them. Except VeggieMeat™. It was okay. VeggieMeat™ may be muscle tissue grown from genetically modified broccoli, but it doesn’t taste like meat. And it doesn’t taste like broccoli. It’s sweet, and there’s this… like aftertaste of iron, like a really rare burger. It’s not my thing.
What I did like about VeggieMeat™ was driving out to the Onsantom® ranch outside of town to watch the stalks. My friends and I’d gawk and laugh at them, these six- or seven-foot-tall stalks of broccoli shambling around on two legs, eating bugs or chasing after birds. If we were really bored, we’d bring a pail of gravel with us and toss the stones at the stalks. They’d roll their milky eyes and let out these thin, whistling growls. If we brought a bit of steak or some hamburger with us, we could lure them in close enough to pelt them over and over until they got pissed off and turned on each other. They’d tear each other apart, limbs flying and landing on the ground, all twitching and green stuff oozing. It was rad.
It took a while for VeggieMeat™ to catch on, but it’s meat grown from vegetables. It had all the protein. It wasn’t that bad when barbecued. What’s more, VeggieMeat™ was cheap to produce and way better on the environment than animal ranching or even farming. The Onsantom® corporation popped up ranches all over the Midwest. They couldn’t open ranches fast enough to meet the demand overseas where poor nations and famine victims didn’t give a crap about whether or not their food was genetically modified.
Whatever. I didn’t care about genetically modified food either. No one could really tell me why it was bad, just that it was. Until the day the stalks went berserk. They broke out of their pens all over the Midwest and poured across the landscape, eating every piece of meat they could get their stiff little hands on. They ate everything. Livestock. Pets. People. Everything disappeared behind the rows of their sharp, pointy teeth.
The power is out. It’s been out for days. My dad’s truck has a satellite radio. The news says the President has ordered a “policy of containment.” The US and Canadian militaries have set up a perimeter around the Midwest until they can figure out what to do with the stalks.
I know one thing: I can’t stay here. There’s plenty of VeggieMeat™ laying around, but no one will eat it. We’re running out of ammunition. And we’re just waiting to be found. I’m heading west. Maybe the Rockies. Maybe the Desert Southwest. Anywhere where broccoli doesn’t grow. I’ve got to get out of here.
The veggies are trying to eat me.
Note: The pace of this game is advertised as 2-3 scenes per week. Stragglers will be eaten.
Hosted and narrated by:
Danny Knestaut (Danny)
Started 05/07/14.
Scenes played: 15
License: Community License