[ WP ] In a world without where all food comes prepackaged and flavorless , write the thoughts of the worlds first chef .

`` Hey Steve!'' 
 
 `` Yeah?'' 
 
 `` C'mere... I think... I think I want you to try something.'' 
 
 
 Steve, my roommate, was a slob. Empty tubes of EZ-PASTEE and boxes of KRUNCH-IT! seemed to follow him around like a crowd of imprinted ducklings. 
 
 Ever since I was young, I hated the stuff. I remember licking the wallpaper of my Nan's bathroom wondering why something so bright and colorful could be just as boring to taste as breakfast. 
 
 You see, I thought it all started with EZ-PASTEE. Tubes of the stuff, in different colors and styles. One kind for breakfast. One kind for dessert. One kind for midnight snacks. Each one was its own special hue of technicolor, in some sort of morbid attempt to brighten up our dreary days. 
 
 I yanked off my grey pullover and used a sleeve to mop my brow. I was sweating everywhere, both from the effort, and from the shock. I heard Steve pad in from the living room, some reality trashvert about pregnant transexuals with learning disabilities blaring behind him. He was wearing a matching version of my same government-issued leisure outfit, with a few additions of some foodstains the laundromatic could n't seem to remove. 
 
 He surveyed my workspace. The soft greys of the cabinets, the hydration station, and the food storage-box all happened to have somehow been smeared with equal parts of most of our food allotment for the month. The effect of the colors-on-grey almost hurt the eyes. 
 
 `` What... what the smeg are you doing?'' 
 
 I smiled broadly as I flourished my hands towards the only clean plate on the eating table. 
 
 `` What is THAT?'' He stared, eyes agog, at my masterpiece. The pinnacle of my efforts. My life, given meaning. 
 
 `` It's dinner. It's something I made. I want you to try some.'' 
 
 He stared at the plate, confused. 
 
 I sorted, scavenged, and traded with my friends at the WorKamp. I tested dozens upon dozens of all the various types and flavors of every foodstuff I could find. Festival KRAK-L-SNAPS. Breakfast DUST-EEZ. Sunday Bruncheon FLIP-WIFFZ. I was a man possesed. 
 
 Each one? The same. Grind it up, dry it out ( if wet ), and you ended up with a powder that although looked a different color from the others, but when blindfolded? Nobody could tell them apart. All was EZ-PASTEE. EZ-PASTEE was all. 
 
 They thought I was crazy. I probably was. Best not let the docs at WorKamp find out. 
 
 `` Okay... I get it. It's food. But... what's... What's wrong with it?'' He sounded incredulous. Possibly frightened. I hoped not frightened. 
 
 
 `` Well, it's simple, you see. I figured it out. I figured out what's missing.'' 
 
 He absentmindedly plucked a half-eaten bag of NIBZ-N-BITZ from his pocket, upending it into his mouth, and then tossing the empty bag behind him, his eyes never leaving my dish. I frowned, but continued. 
 
 `` This? This is the future. This is exactly what I've been talking about.'' 
 
 He walked towards the table, and leaned down towards my creation. He sniffed. 
 
 `` It smells... weird. Like... real weird.'' 
 
 `` I know, right? That's part of the amazingness of it all.'' I found myself giddy with excitement. `` This is something *different*. This is something *new*. I've looked up things on the Infonet. Nobody has ever thought of or heard of such a thing. I'm some sort of scientist... inventor!'' 
 
 I stared at him as he stared at the food. I found that by simply adding a few household items here and there, i could change the consistency of the powder. Adding water or drying it changed the texture. Doing both? The sky was the limit. Plus, of course, a special addition I found one day walking home from the WorKamp when I was late and missed the hovershuttle. Ah yes, my muse, so to speak. 
 
 
 He sniffed it again, less politely. `` What's wrong with it?'' 
 
 I glared. `` Nothing is wrong with it. Everything is RIGHT with it.'' 
 
 He sat, sliding the dish towards himself. 
 
 `` I think it's wrong. i think it's poison. Is it poison? Is this because of the mess? I told you I'd clean it up after my show...'' He trailed off, and suddenly clapped his hands to his mouth. 
 
 My smile returned, brighter and bigger than before. This is when I knew it worked. 
 
 `` ERT ERZ PURZURHN!!!'' 
 
 I cocked an eyebrow. 
 
 He got the point and loosened the grip on his mouth. 
 
 `` I said, it IS poison! My mouth is getting all... wrong!'' 
 
 I nodded profusely. 
 
 `` What did you do to me?'' 
 
 I shook my head. `` I did n't do anything. IT did it. The food did. Is your mouth all full of slobber now?'' 
 
 He nodded, eyes looking slightly horrified. 
 
 `` Perfect! Perfect!'' I rubbed my hands together with glee. `` Now to see if step two occurs!'' 
 
 `` Stehp terr?'' He readjusted his hands again. `` Step two? What is step two?'' 
 
 And as if on cue, despite both of us having had our full ration at darktime ( and him? Then some, the gluttonous slob! ), a noise was heard. As if someone fell into a three-meter deep vat of EZ-PASTEE. 
 
 His eyes nearly blew out of their sockets as he clutched his stomach. `` WHAT IS GOING ON?'' he yelped. 
 
 I leaned in close. `` You, my poor slobby roommate? You sir, are hungry. Hungry for this.'' And slid the plate closer. 
 
 I learned much from the Infonet, and my own experimentation. Whatever it truly was they made food out of, I had no clue. But what I did know is that with those right additions, it was infinitely malleable. Aerate it and dry it? Crunchy and light. Leave it in a mold and dry it? Crunchy and dense. Add water to the powder, and it became pasty, gooey, or runny, or even the same kind of liquid in the SUK-SNAK packages for when you were away from a hydration station and needed to quench your thirst. Emergency candles helped me warm and harden my experiments quickly, imparting its own strange flavor and mouthfeel. Adding just a bit of water, aerating, and putting that into a mold? Gave me a strange sort of textured light slab that seemed to go well with my extra ingredients. Once I figured it all out, it was all a matter of getting everythign down to the right consistencies in the right shapes and using the flames of the candles to do the hard part. 
 
 And the best thing? No the worst thing? 
 
 My extra ingredients did n't come from a tube, or a box, or a bag. I just FOUND them! 
 
 I watched him as he almost visibly weighed his options. 
 
 `` So,'' I began, `` would you like to try?'' 
 
 He looked at the dish, the food on it, at me, and back again. 
 
 I stood there a while. Eventually, he came to a decision, and nodded slowly. 
 
 He picked up my experiment, something I decided to call on the spot a'handheld'. It made sense at the time. I quickly showed him how to pick it up, and hold it in his hands, and how to convey it to his mouth. I reflected back to the scene I came across on that fateful day last week as I showed him how it worked. The darker mud-colored slabs worked well to keep ones fingers clean. Some seeds I had scavenged from a plant added some sort of strange yet delightful mouth feeling to them. Their aeration also acted as a sponge of sorts, which was useful, as I had coated the center with a concoction consisting of most of the rest of the plant. Individually, they caused the mouth to nearly sing with delight, but together? Oh they were simply *joyous! * 
 
 `` What... what do I do? Like... like this?'' He made a horrible attempt at first, almost ruining my design. The mouth is horizontal! The food must be held as such! You do n't need a squeeze tube or a cello-pak to eat this! Eat it like a real human, with your hands and mouth! 
 
 `` No no, just like this.'' I pantomimed the motion, hoping he would n't spill it, or worse, try to eat each individual bit of this stack separately. Why... why... that would destroy the point! 
 
 He figured out eventually what I meant and was poised to devour the foodstack... no, my handheld. They might think I was crazy, what with the mixing of outside elements into the food. I know, I know... I hear all the stories about the phages and the rads and the microbes, but the proof is right there! It works, and it is AMAZING! 
 
 He paused. `` Are you sure it's not poison?'' 
 
 `` Promise. Already had three in the last few days getting the proportions down right. Still having BMs like normal, and I feel healthy as ever!'' 
 
 That seemed to allay all his fears and suspicions. A bit of confusion flittered across his face as he grew accustomed to eating it, but I could tell from his first full bite, and then the chewing afterward that he was in his own private ecstasy. 
 
 `` Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmm'' 
 
 I gasped. `` Oh drells... Are you okay, Steve?'' 
 
 His eyes stayed closed as he chewed slowly, continuing to make the noise. 
 
 `` Steve???'' 
 
 His eyes slowly opened. `` This... this is so, so, so very smegging good.'' 
 
 I could n't help but clap my hands in happiness. He devoured the rest of the handheld, and to my dismay, was licking the remnants off his filthy fingers. 
 
 `` More. I need more, man. We need more.'' 
 
 I stopped. This was the moment of truth. The point where men were separated from the sheep. 
 
 `` I'll need your help for that, Steve.'' 
 
 `` Okay, just tell me what was in it? I've never tasted anything like that before in my entire life. You... you could be RICH, like Ultraluxe rich!'' 
 
 I nodded, and knew it was time. Everything was falling into place. I picked up a small bag and removed the contents and placed them on the table. 
 
 His eyes glanced at each item in turn. Items I stole from or created and smuggled out of the WorKamp. Hammer. Chisel. Saw. Two extremely large knives. 
 
 `` What you ate? Lucy, from block 38. She committed suicide right in front of me. Could n't stop it. But, she's gone now, and what I was able to take from her you ate the last of. Now, do you want to help me get more, or do you want that to be the last time your mouth will ever be happy for the rest of your smegging life?'' 
 
 He looked pained. Frightened. Awed. Shaken. He stared at me, at the clean parts of his recently licked hands, the plate, and then me again. 
 
 His looked turned to hunger, and he nodded. I smiled in turn, packed the tools up, shook his hand, and began to explain my plan. 
 

