Microfiction 1 (Giving Day)
“It appears your family has a zinc deficiency ma’am,” said the rescuer as he raises his test device from the woman’s skin. He glances over at her child.
“It could mean growth retardation for her as well,” he continued.
“Yes, it has been difficult to purchase that particular Add recently ever since prices for it went up because of the recent demand in the upper echelons for mushroom flavoured items,” said the woman.
The rescuer nodded understandably.
The rich has often, in their own possibly unknowing way, influenced the overall market with their purchasing power to determine the demand and supply of the types of Adds that become available in the market. That is why it is up to him and his crew to take leftovers from stores where older Adds have gone out of vogue and give them to the needy who require Adds more for its nutrients rather than its flavour.
The rescuer smiles at the woman.
“Not to worry ma’am, my friends and I have collected some older versions of Adds, which contain the Zinc you need.”
“What flavour is it?” asked the child. The woman hushes her.
“It’s all right,” waved the Rescuer. “Today, you guys shall have oysters!”
With a press of a button, the machine on his chest starts to whir.
Microfiction 2 (Collection Day)
“Here take these,” said the storekeeper, handing over a couple of Add vials.
“Watch and learn, Rookie,” said the larger one with the Rescuer machine strapped to her.
“First, we test it for any anomalies, this is important. We need to make sure that it is still edible for our recipients.” She pulls out a device which scans the Add for any anomalies. A beeping sound occurs.
“Hey Storekeeper, I am afraid we can’t take this one,” she calls out. “Our machine reads that the compounds in it have begun to rot.”
“But it’s before the expiry date,” said the storekeeper.
“Yes, but unfortunately, we have to be extra careful with the items we give to our recipients.”
The storekeeper grumbles. “Fine, hand it over I’ll see if I have any others out back.”
The Rookie looks up at her senior with admiration. “Do you think that machine will be able to fix spoiled food?” she asked earnestly.
The senior looks at her with a thoughtful look upon her face. “You know what, I think you just gave me an idea.”
Microfiction 3 (Dumpster Day)
“This is gross,” called out one of them.
“But necessary,” chimed in the other.
Two silhouettes are rummaging in the dark through an open dumpster from a small alley.
“You know, as the Dumpster team, we really have it way harder than the Collection team,” said the first.
The second shook her head. “It’s not that difficult. All we have to do is find vials and scan them for edibility.”
The first just shrugs. “Hey I found one!” she calls out, raising a purple vial in her hand.
“Let’s scan it,” said the second.
The machine strapped to their backs comes with a scanner which looks like an artifact from the past where they used it for barcodes. Scanning the vial, the machine crunches itself with some noises.
“Alright, this one has Zinc, Calcium and Magnesium,” said the second proudly. She scratches off the items from their inventory.
“Perfect, now we have collected enough nutrients to start giving!”
NOTES
I came up with these three micro-fictions, but decided to take parts of them to create the revised story together with Allison’s selected pieces as well. We will be posting our revised story that comes with the full research on our storyworld and the accompanying graphic together in the next post.