Words by

Haukur Már Helgason

@haukurmar

All those corrupted fruits, you see, were giving those involved a bad name. Not to mention the smell, the simple unpleasantness of it all. One year a brilliant solution was found: not to grow fruits at all anymore, but corruption itself—fungi and bacteria that certainly cannot be called corruption if there is nothing to corrupt.
Orders were sent out: forget the apples, forget the bananas, kiwis and clementines and let’s make the microbes formerly known as rot (MFKAR)! To begin with there was plenty for the MFKARs to feed on, but as only a few fruit trees kept growing, on their own, by neglect, the MFKARs had to start feeding on each other, already in the second year. The advantage, of course, was that at least nothing was being corrupted and no one noticed the smell, since everything stank anyway.
The third year, it was discovered that microbes could be nurtured directly with sugar, and since sugar-cane was renamed ‘MFKAR support material’, this also did not count as corruption, but a beneficially harvested natural process.
In year four, production increased by 12%.
In year five no one knew anymore what on earth could be the meaning of ‘I don’t like microbes’ or any other such phrases, for obviously we are all made of microbes, aren’t we?
In year six, those who spoke of fruit as if they were something to be desired were arrested and silenced, since fruits do nothing but invite corruption.
In the seventh year a sudden drop in MFKAR support material production took the industry by surprise, urging authorities to support research and development in the field of added microbe value (AMV). AMV’d products were a major success and sales almost kept their pace as colourful fruit-shaped objects made entirely of MFKARs hit the markets: mapples, mananas, miwis and mementines, murberries, mackberries –even marrots and minach sold out faster than anyone had predicted. The RnD teams were awarded appropriately.
We are now entering the eighth year and everything seems to be under control.