THE FARM (standard:science fiction, 825 words)
Author: Danny Raven	Added: Oct 16 2005	Views/Reads: 3579/2257	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
If you go down to The Farm today....you won't be coming back !

THE  FARM 

We're humane about the way we do things on The Farm nowadays. None of
the suffering is permitted today which went on in the past – modern 
anaesthetics have seen to that. 

All the men and women are anaesthetised now before the capsules
containing the seed are fed to them, so take it from me, they don't 
feel the slightest pain. Not a twinge. 

Of course, we have to keep them alive while the seeds are growing within
them, absorbing all those magical ingredients the body possesses and 
then, when it's ready, when the young shoot finally bursts through the 
skin.... well you can imagine the pain if the unfortunate man or woman 
wasn't anaesthetized ! 

My God, when I think what it must have been like for them in the past
without anaesthetics. They were just forced to swallow the seeds and 
then strapped down in rows. It was said you could hear the screaming 
for days. 

But none of that now. No, it's modern anaesthetics so there's no pain
and no screaming. It's better this way really, because we need to keep 
these men and women, mediums as we like to call them, alive as long as 
possible – we find we get a better quality of crop that way. So along 
with the anaesthetics, there are injections of vitamins, minerals and 
amino acids. I'm telling you, some of these people look better now than 
they did before they came to The Farm ! 

So where is The Farm located, you're possibly thinking ? Why has nobody
ever found it ? Well it's underground for a start and it's in a very 
remote desert location. Remote as in nobody ever goes there because 
there's nothing but sand and rocks and snakes. Not exactly the type of 
place people would choose to visit, not even the adventurous types, so 
nobody's going to stumble on it by accident. 

And how did all this start you're probably wondering ? What do we do
with the crops once we harvest them ? 

Well, like a lot of amazing things, the whole thing happened purely by
chance. It resulted from something quite simple really – picnics ! 

You know what people are like during summer picnics – lying there on the
ground with the sun overhead, relaxed, chatting away, enjoying 
themselves. Some of them might reach out and pull up a stalk of grass 
or a small shoot and nibble on it – you've probably done it yourself. 

After one of those picnics, several people reported to a hospital with
severe abdominal cramps. Investigations showed a growth in the stomach. 
No-one, not even the best surgeons in the land knew what it was and 
sadly all the people died. 

The post-mortems all revealed the same results – the picknickers must
have ingested some kind of seeds and they had rooted in the stomach 
wall and then started to grow. Purely for research and also out of 
curiousity, the seeds were allowed to grow fully – and how they 
flourished ! 

So one bright spark in the laboratory investigated the small crops and
ran some tests on the strange looking sap that oozed down their stalks. 
He couldn't believe the results ! The sap contained an element (I don't 
really understand it, it's a bit beyond me) that scientists had been 
trying unsuccessfully to produce for years. A vital element needed to 
eliminate that disease which is the curse of the planet – cancer. 

Amazing, isn't it but it's true ! The incidence of cancer has fallen
dramatically in recent times and some areas are now completely free of 
the disease. The Surgeon General assures me that it will be completely 
eradicated in about ten more years. 

Wonderful news, isn't it ! 

Oh, before I go, one last thing. You're possibly wondering about all
those men and women, young and healthy most of them, who become our 
mediums, who donate their lives and bodies to us here on The Farm. 


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