Negative Growth

iStockphoto®, ©jeangill, field of golden wheat

I wandered down to the Urban Garden today. It has been a long time since I have been there, probably a year or more. I used to go regularly to honour those who were lost in the last conflict with the big food corporations, but given that we lost and such visits are tolerated rather than encouraged, I stopped. It didn’t help that I ended up working for the biggest of the Corporations, but I have a new family to feed. If you can’t beat them, join them.

I never thought that I would have another family, not after losing my wife and unborn child in the conflict. Julie had principles, even though she had been a scientist working at one of the largest agricultural organisations. She believed that food should be fresh and as natural as possible. She was completely against the GMOs that the Corporations were propagating and forcing on the world. She knew these new plants were not safe, that the methods used forced modification on plants that could not be achieved by more old-fashioned selection methods. She had been proved correct. All those African nations where so much of the genetically tampered crops were dumped are almost extinct. People dying from cancers and extreme allergies at first, then starvation as the crops killed off the insect life, destroyed the soil and finally the plants themselves. The Corporations blamed it on extreme drought from climate change, but everyone knows that is not true.

However, that is small comfort for Julie. She died defending the urban garden where she and a hundred others nurtured vegetables and herbs to share amongst those who tended the garden. A huge community garden in the middle of the city. It defied everything the corporations stood for – people being self-sufficient, growing their own food, working together for themselves. When the Corporations took over, the garden had to go.

The company goons cut my Julie down as she defended the small field of barley she had grown. Scythed her down as she stood, carrying our child in her womb, her blood seeping into the ground she had defended with her life. With her love.

The Corporations kept the garden as a memorial. kept the garden as a memorial. At least, that is what they call it. We all know is has been kept as a reminder of what will happen to any of us should we cross the line again. But we will cross the line. I took the job so that I could continue the revolution but from the inside. My new wife knows nothing about my subversive nature and that is how it should be. The less she knows, the safer it is for her and my daughter.

I will avenge my Julie’s death. I will make sure her garden grows again and for all eternity. 

Inspired by a prompt from Cynthia Morris in her quarterly Free Write Fling.