Doug Donnan

Doug Donnan
Doug Donnan

Friday, December 11, 2015

The Plant Manager

Doug Donnan
Executive Editor/OMNI-GENRE+MAGAZINE!
donnan.doug@yahoo.com                                                                    




                                                    
The Plant Manager                           
                                              
 by
       
 Doug Donnan

         
          [ 2023 / Poco Madre California ]

   “So what you’re telling me is that you operate 
this whole multi-complex hydroponics project by
yourself?” the reporter asked as he flipped open
his little notebook and struggled to steady his
Bic pen.

  “That’s pretty much correct Mr. Cull,” Robby
replied confidently as he expertly steered the
speeding aluminum golf cart on a sweeping turn
around a veritable sea of towering yellow-eared
corn stalks. “This entire heliotropic government
‘Greenland’ project is my responsibility. We’ve
got it all inside here,” he said as he swept his
left hand skyward at the stretching emerald filtered
glass and photo-cell covering, “corn, beans, lettuce,
dozens of varieties of fruit, you name it and we
grow it.” This solar powered multi-field facility
will turn out enough raw produce to feed the entire
population of several third world countries.”

  “That’s pretty impressive by anybody’s standards,”
the wide eyed reporter sighed as Robby finally
slowed a bit to negotiate on to a cut off fork in
the narrow Astro Turf cart path. “But, you keep
saying ‘we’…

  “Robots!” Robby exclaimed as he pointed off in the
distance at a vast cornucopia of domestic and exotic
melons. “You see, I have at my disposal a veritable
army of robotic farmhands. Highly ultra mobile ir-
rigation distributors, or HUMIDS as I call them, a
tireless battalion of photo-tropic pickers, automa-
ton hybrid harvester tractobots, and on and on. And
the kicker is I can pretty much control them all
from right here in this solar powered cart!”

   It’s all truly amazing,” Cull said as he snapped
off a series of pictures from his cell phone.

                        [‘Later that day’]

     As the midday sun dipped behind the far off stand
and steeples of the Santa Ana mountains, the solar
plexi-glass cover of the enormous spreading facili-
ty was beginning to shadow over with a diffuse almost
opaque shroud.

  “Maybe we could stop for a bit of lunch or early
dinner. I think I have just about everything I need
for my write up on your Greenland Operation here
Mr.… say, just what is your last name anyway?”
 
  Robby was just then pulling up to one of the
ubiquitous elongated green and white striped field
sheds. He set the pedal brake on the cart and
turned to face the rotund, belly-rubbing reporter
seated next to him. “Just Robby,” he replied rather
curtly. “Lunch?” he now seemed somewhat miffed,
perhaps offended by the suggestion.

  “Yeh, you know…food,” Cull mimed with a childish
hand gesture to his pursing lips. “You do eat don’t
you? I mean you’re surrounded by the worlds biggest
smorgasbord for Christ’s sake. Don’t you ever sample
the fruits of your labor here…so to speak?” Cull
tried with an impish smile and a playful slap on the
driver’s squared and decidedly rigid shoulder.

  “Food…sustenance?” Robby responded indifferently
with a cold, steely eyed leer not unlike that of a
stalking panther. “We don’t require that sir. Perhaps,
that is why ‘we’ are now in charge!”

             


             _____ THE END _____

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