Pam spotted her friend as soon as she walked through the mess hall doors.
“When did you come aboard!” Pam asked.
“Just a few hours ago. I had to get some things set up in my quarters first.” Gail replied.
“Oh no worries! Where are you headed this time?”
“Mmm, I’m thinking I’d like to be let off someplace warm and unindustrialized.”
“Eros perhaps?” Pam suggested.
“Yes, ma’am, what would you care for this evening?” The concierge asked politely.
Gail shook her head, taken aback.
“Evening?” She said with a sigh, “Great now I’ll have to readjust my sleep cycles again.”
“Water please,” she added, remembering the concierge who promptly headed off to fetch her water.
“Aren’t you the least bit hungry? Here try one of these apples, we just got in a shipment of them from the colonies!” Pam suggested as she grabbed a yellow apple from the basket on the table behind her. “Just smell the zestfulness of it!”
Gail took the apple, and sniffed it hesitantly. Pam eyed her curiously.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
“Does this apple have xylitol in it? I’m highly allergic to xylitol.” Gail said.
“What? What’s that?” Pam asked confused.
“From the colonies huh; I’m assuming its host plant was genetically modified to survive in different environments. Ugh, nope, that means it does have xylitol in it.” Gail answered.
Pam laughed.
“Gail, almost all of the food we eat nowadays has been genetically modified! How do you survive if you can’t eat it?”
“Your water ma’am,” The concierge said, offering Gail the glass of water which she promptly drank.
“I am sorta hungry though, come on Pam, I’ll show you how I eat!”
Pam followed Gail out of the mess hall and down to her quarters.
“The captain was a little reluctant to allow me to bring my entourage but I told her that I would set it all up myself so the crew wouldn’t have to.”
Gail explained to Pam before opening the door into her quarters. The door swished open to reveal the fact that half of Gails room had been taken over by a plastic sheet room of some sort. Pam looked at her friend as though she was considering referring her to the ship’s doctor for a mental examination.
Gail walked into the room and unzipped the door into the plastic tent and Pam followed her. Out of habit Pam fluffed her hair as the humidity rose once she stepped through the second doorway. She gasped once she saw what was on the other side!
Trees and plants of all kinds! Carefully grown and manicured to produce just enough food for one person.
“Now THAT’s zest!” Gail said, tossing a fragrant yellow apple from a nearby mini tree over to Pam. “No additives, no genetic tampering, and no xylitol!”
photo credit: Greenhouse via photopin (license)
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I am terribly sorry, I got behind on two days of stories this week and JUST realized that today is the last day for the Blogging From AtoZ challenge!
So, today's post was inspired by X Y and Z! X is for: Zylitol, Y is for Yellow Apple, and Z is for zipper all part of the Blogging from A to Z April 2015 challenge! Click on the letters to join on in the fun!
Every day this past month (excluding Sundays- and the past two days I also missed) I wrote a post about something that begins with the letter for that day. Most of the time it was a sci-fi flash fiction piece and the occasional 5 sentence fiction.
* I've really enjoyed this challenge- but I've discovered that blogging every day may not be for me. I will certainly continue to bring you new flash fiction but I think I may be scaling it back to 2-3 times a week tops. WHEW!
For Readers: What is your favorite fruit? If you could bring its plant along with you on a space ship, would you?
