Industry

By Anna


Garth shook the bottle in in his hand and the funny little humans - pickled for eternity - were so compacted they hardly moved. He found it hard to comprehend that a species so primitive would be viviparous, thinking that they surely would lay eggs.

His father had given him a passel of the ugly little things for his fifth birthday, and he had watched them develop and multiply in the glass farm that had sat on his bedroom desk, for what seemed the eternity of his childhood. He had found their mode of procreation odd then. But then they were mere insects and intellectually dulled life forms, but yet seemed industrious and he had marvelled at their efforts to achieve betterment, this always thwarted by their predilection for battle.

It was in his late teens that he had considered they might be a food source - a bar snack - and his idea had progressed into that of pickling them in red hot spices. He loved the way they looked in the bottle, reminding him of foetuses bathing gently in amniotic fluid awaiting birth.

"Garth the quondam loser - now the man of the hour," he sighed happily. He picked one out. "Hello son," he grinned as he popped the tender morsel in his beak. Garth you are a genius! he thought. Big taste, bigger bank balance!


Copyright ©2011 Anna. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

#

This story was originally published on the puzzelicious plus site on May 13, 2011.

#

If you like this story, check out Anna’s other stories, published on this site: Compulsion, Retribution and Simkins.

#

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I'm a mother, friend, nurse, wife and lover! I think I have always been 'creative' drawing, painting, writing stories and poetry from an early age. I am moronically happy as I don't see the point in being miserable and find life - 99% of the time - wonderful.