“Just don’t tell her that this is how I’m getting rid of it all.”
“Are you crazy?! She already thinks it was a terrible idea letting you start the bonfire for the autumn festival two days ago. She will never approve of letting you torch the whole compost shed!”
“I’m not torching the shed, Jordan. I’m torching what’s in the shed. And I’m taking it out of the shed to do that!”
Gen continued his whispering argument with the teenage girl as he wheeled another load of compost out into the nighttime air. Their hissing voices blended with the light breeze in the air, thankfully, the sleeping occupants of the houses nearby none the wiser to the flame-related espionage going on in the backyard. He pushed the wheelbarrow full of compost around the back field – the one that he’d popped up beside when he’d first arrived in the sim – to a large pile of compost that was steadily growing out behind the village.
With a brisk tip, Gen added to the growing pile, observing the pile of rotting and composting vegetables with a keen eye.
“I’m almost done.” He whispered next to Jordan, glaring at her in the moonlight. “You can tell Omma Cynthia everything tomorrow morning. After I’m finished!”
“We should be telling her now!” Jordan scowled, crossing her arms and shooting Gen a doubtful glare. “I love you, Gen, but you really seem to have issues figuring out when you’re supposed to speak to authority figures.”
Gen couldn’t exactly deny that. It had been a week and a half since he’d begun the agricultural sim (sim-time, at least), and the village had definitely warmed up to him. He’d become basically the local clown, a friendly face that just wandered around working on anything anyone needed help with. He usually slept over at different people’s houses each night, typically passing out on the floor of whoever the last person he’d helped was. It was a running joke that the village was keeping him homeless so they could work him to exhaustion every night.
He knew everybody’s names – including the village pets – and he’d befriended basically everyone who hadn’t trusted him from day one. That included his babysitter Tyrone and the village elder, Omma Cynthia. It even included this girl, Jordan, who was the teenager that had first accused Gen of being a crazy crop-burner when he’d arrived in the village. She was one of his best friends now. Yep, Gen had done a great job of blending with the village society and becoming just another member of this farming family.
But he was a family member with severe authority issues.
As everyone in the village knew, Gen was prone to running off on new projects without asking for anyone’s permission first. When he saw a problem that needed fixing, he often dropped whatever he was doing and immediately started working on a solution for it. Clearing out the crops had actually taken him nearly six days, even with the other farmers helping, because he’d gotten distracted by multiple other projects. These including helping repair the houses near the center of the village that had been damaged by a thunderstorm not long ago, re-working the irrigation channels on the outskirts of the village so they stopped overflowing, filling in as a temporary teacher for two days while the village teacher was sick, and chasing down a lost kitten to bring back to the grief-stricken kid who owned it.
And none of those things were activities he’d asked for permission to do.
Gen had a bad habit of losing Tyrone when he ran off to start something and immediately working on it himself, without checking in with Omma Cynthia. Usually, the elder would only find out by walking in on him already doing the thing, and she’d give him an earful about running things by her. He all but ignored the presence of his two authority figures – Omma Cynthia and Tyrone – and just did whatever he felt was necessary in the moment, without hesitation.
It was a character quirk that had helped make him beloved in the village, since he was so quick to help if it was needed, but it made him a thorn in the side of anyone in charge of him.
It also meant he was a really, really slow worker, as evidenced by the six-day field task.
And by the fact that he was only now getting around to clearing out the compost.
“Look, I’ve already pushed this off long enough.” Gen continued, bringing himself back into the present as he turned the wheelbarrow around and pushed it back towards the compost shed, ready to bring over the last load. “Burying it is going to take forever. Do you know how deep this stuff would need to be so it doesn’t affect the other crops? And on top of that, it might seep into the surrounded soil. Burning would be faster and more effective.”
“Yeah, for ruining what little reputation you have!” Jordan was adamant, jumping in front of the wheelbarrow now with a determined expression. “Gen, just bury it. You have Omma Cynthia’s permission for that. No matter how long it takes, you’ll still get it done!”
“Even if that happens to be my motto,” Gen held a finger up in the air. “I still have other things I need to get done, too. Like the new field that I still haven’t started.”
Jordan snorted at that, rolling her eyes. “No one cares about the new field, Gen.” She said irritably. “You’re the only one who thinks we need one!”
“Yeah, because I’m the only one paranoid enough about this disease.” Gen huffed, turning the wheelbarrow sharply around Jordan and pushing it beside the last of the compost pile in the corner of the shed. He grabbed the shovel from where he’d rested it again the wall, his pupils dilating in the darkness of the shed as he began scooping the black compost into the wheelbarrow.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Just give up on the field.” Jordan hissed from behind him, looking behind herself nervously. “You really are just being too paranoid. We don’t need it. We’ve already planted seeds in all the cleared fields for a new crop. We have enough food in our stores to last until it’s grown. Everything will be fine!”
“But you’ve made new crops before and they were still diseased.” Gen argued, scooping mechanically. “That last batch I just got rid of was the third generation that’s come out like that. Each generation has only gotten worse. Why? Because the fields are infected. Not just the plants. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“No, it was the compost. Not the fields.” Jordan responded stubbornly. “We’re using different compost for this new crop. The disease will be all gone. There’s no way it was in the fields themselves.”
“I think we should still be careful, just in case.” Gen sighed, scooping in the last pile of the compost and leaning the shovel against the wall. “Omma Cynthia gave me permission for the field, anyway. Just let me worry about it.”
He spun the wheelbarrow around, shooting Jordan a determined glare. “But in order for me to worry about it effectively and started getting progress done on it, I need to get rid of this compost as soon as possible. Which means burning it. So please move.”
“Gen, I don’t want the village getting mad at you.” Jordan looked at him with pleading eyes now as he rolled past her, pushing the wheelbarrow out into the night and towards his compost pile. “Someone is going to wake up to the raging bonfire you’re about to start and then they’ll be freaked out that you were burning things without permission. I can’t let that happen!”
“Well, it’s going to happen.” Gen huffed, simply tipping the wheelbarrow once he reached the pile and dumping the last compost into it. “And it’s going to happen now. This compost is being burned, Jordan. Now I’d recommend you heading home and pretending you had no idea this was going on, unless you want to be reprimanded by Omma Cynthia for letting me run wild.”
“I doubt I’d get that much of a reprimand.” Jordan muttered behind him, watching nervously as he pulled out a small flint and steel from his pocket. “We all know you can’t be stopped once you have an idea in your head.”
“Aw, thanks!” Gen chirped happily, bending down by the compost pile and beginning to strike the materials together. He eyed the tiny spark they produced critically, holding it closer to the bottom of the compost pile. It needed to be bigger. He’d strike harder next time. “Now stand back. Some of this is pretty dry so it’ll catch fire fast.”
Jordan fell silent for a few moments as Gen struck the flint and steel again, a bigger spark being produced this time, and leaping towards the compost pile. It didn’t quite catch, so Gen sighed and tried again. In the breezy air of the night, the clinking of his flint and steel were the only sounds heard this far out at the edge of the village.
It was almost peaceful.
Gen lifted the flint high above his head, eyeing the steel with a glare. This next strike for sure would do it. He’d put way more power into it, and then that compost pile would be done for.
Before he could bring his hand hurtling downwards, though, he felt the flint being snatched right out of it.
“Wha- Hey!” Gen turned around with a glare, looking up at Jordan. “Give it back, Jor.”
“No way.” Jordan gave him an equally fierce glare, grabbing the steel from him next and shoving him out of the way. “You’re spirits-awful with this stuff. If you keep going, I think you’re more likely to catch yourself on fire.”
Gen was about to protest further – he’d only lit himself up once – but he fell silent when Jordan bent down and began to strike the flint and steel together herself.
“I’ll just do it.” She said quietly, giving as small sigh as a spark flared between her materials and leaped onto the compost pile. “Omma Cynthia can yell at both of us, but at least this way, you were just supervising instead of actually lighting things up.”
Gen blinked at his friend in shock, looking over at the fire now crackling at the base of the compost pile. It grew larger as it fed on more of the rotten vegetables in the pile, steadily growing up through the pile. He’d dug a large hole in the ground for the compost pile, a pit around eight inches deep, to act as a sort of fire pit. Thanks to Jordan’s excellent lighting, it looked like the fire pit would actually be doing its job in keeping the bonfire contained soon.
“…Thank you.” Gen said with a smile, looking back at Jordan as the orange flames flickered over her face. “I appreciate it, Jor.”
“No problem.” Jordan sighed again, glancing over at Gen with a weak smile of her own. “But let’s step back a bit and wait for the adults to come screaming at us.”
Gen chuckled at that and stood, holding out his hand to the girl with a smile. She took it and he hauled her to her feet, the two of them standing back to observe their handiwork. As the yellow and orange flames began to lick higher and higher, releasing a pungent, sweet smell into the sky along with a thing pillar of smoke, lights began to come on in the village behind them.
Farmers started stumbling out with torches and hoes, trying to figure out what was going on. Omma Cynthia herself joined them, shuffling out of her house on the other end of the village with her cane and a small torch in hand.
And yes, Gen and Jordan both got an earful for their unsanctioned bonfire. Gen thought either his ears were either going to start bleeding or his feet would dig permanent pits in the ground, he wasn’t sure which, by the end of the lecture. Omma Cynthia’s eye were full of fury and her cane came dangerously near Gen’s head a time or two, but eventually, she let them off.
The two of them and a handful of other farmers from the village kept an eye on the fire as it burned, watching the compost shrivel and burn away into nothingness as the night wore on. By daybreak, the pile was just about gone, and their watch group was able to kick some dirt over the dying embers to call it good.
He and Jordan received another lecture from Omma Cynthia about asking for permission again that morning, the two of them barely awake enough to keep their eyes open at that point, and they’d both passed out in Jordan’s house after that.
But with the compost pile gone and some sleep securely under his belt, about six hours later, Gen woke up and was able to get started on his spare field.
Tyrone was back watching him make it, of course, the gruff-faced man staring Gen down as he cleared a new plot of land off to the side of the village, working as hard as he could by hand to get rid of all its weeds and turn up some good soil.
Gen knew the simulation would speed up the amount of time it took to grow crops – it did that so the sims wouldn’t take months-worth of time to complete and students could finish the exam in a few hours – so he didn’t have much time to get a crop of his own planted before the villagers’ crops would finish.
He spent the next few days making his new field, nervously eying the sprouts already showing in the fields of the village squash, and praying that everything would go well. Two weeks into the sim itself, Gen’s field was finally ready and he was able to plant his own crop, the villagers’ crops already in their first stages of life at that point.
From that point on, he simply tended his crops with the help of Jordan or some of his other friends every now and then, helping out with the village crops as well, and generally fixing up the rest of the village while he waited for the results.
Eventually, at the three-week mark of the sim (a mark Gen knew was pushing the maximum time allotted for the exam overall), the fruits of the villagers’ labor showed.
...And they were all rotten.