The Fruits of Earth - Part 1
Saturday, December 15, 2018Starting from today, I intend to publish a short story as a feuilleton. The story is called The Fruit of Earth and it can be added into the speculative fiction genre, but also into young adult category. It is based on a dream I had about a year ago. The story I'm proposing to you is about a girl, Mya, who struggles to get what she wants. She is a strong character, the kind of person that will not renounce her dreams and will do everything in her power to achieve her goals. Unfortunately, the world Mya lives in is not a fairy-tale one. Soon, she discovers that she's living in a lie and that the real world is totally different than what she'd imagined.
My name is Mya and I have lived at the Farm my whole life. I am already fifteen years old and spending my last year in the Nursery. Soon it should start to show… Will I become really a seed or just a fruit?
I dream about becoming a seed, to have the chance to get an education, to be adopted, to leave this place… Seeds are cared for and loved. They enjoy all the privileges at The Farm: the best food, better bedding, rest and relaxation; unlike the fruits, who have to work for the entire daylight and all they eat are the remains.
Some of the girls from my season have already started to show early signs of blossom. Oleya, the luckiest of all, is sure to become a seed. Her arms and legs are bearing the true signs of a seed, I saw them. Carole also brags about becoming a seed, but she had never shown us the signs and I don’t believe her. She’s always showing off. The rest of the girls are just hoping, as I am.
Season by season, the older girls have left the Nursery either to be adopted by loving parents, either for the part of the Farm where the fruits are gathered and all the hard work is done. They call it the Labor camp. We can still see the girls in the distance, through the five-foot-high fence. They look miserable, hunched and dusty … and probably hungry. They are taken every morning to the fields and brought back in the evenings, after a full day’s work.
We can’t speak to them anymore and that’s a pity. My best friend is there. Tina is her name. I really miss her sometimes. She is older than me by two seasons. She was devastated to learn that she was not a seed. She wanted to leave the farm so much… but she had no luck. When she had reached the end of her blossoming cycle, she was designated as a fruit and sent to the labor camp. She cried her eyes out but she had no way of fighting her fate.
None of us has.
Or, have we?
About a year ago, I’ve heard two older girls whispering something about provoking your blossoming. At first, I got scared and I thought this was none of my business and maybe I should report them. But then it hit me: what if they’re right? What if you can alter your fate, just a little? I didn’t want to end up like Tina…
It is then when I started asking questions and listen to people more closely. I had to be careful, of course, this was forbidden talk. Since then, I’ve been gathering stories and advice from the entire Nursery. I don’t think anybody knew what I was up to. I was discrete enough with this questioning, leading the girls into believing I was interested in other things entirely.
It’s incredible what you can hear, the amount of information you can gather if you only set your mind to it. Some of the newly acquired knowledge I just dismissed as pure fantasy. For example, doing incantations during fool moon, while submerged in a pool of mud. That’s silly! But others deserved a closer look. Unfortunately, none of the advice or remedies worked and I was running out of time. I had maybe three to four months until my blossoming cycle ended. I had to do something if I was to succeed.
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