Amentia

Chapter 16 - The community

Meiko and Nati were the first to be dropped off at their house. They would be staying at the farm that dedicated solely to growing the Amentian equivalent of corn, and it was located directly to the left of the place of worship, though at some distance since everything was so spacious here.

Anna and Zoe were to live together as well, in the house that was on the other side of the place of worship, across from Meiko and Nati's place. This farm grew one type of fruit and one type of vegetable.

Nina was assigned to the rice farm, which was located between the entrance of the village and the dining hall.

The houses were all exactly the same: two floors, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, the kitchen, and the living room. All the walls inside were bare, just a nicely done light-brown wooden wall. And the outside looked exactly the same.

Despite not caring about decorations, they did have one or two amenities that none of the girls thought they'd get in a place like this: clean running water and something resembling electricity. There wasn't actual electricity, nothing was actually plugged in anywhere. There were just certain items that worked as if they were electrical thanks to the inscription of unreadable symbols much like the ones they had seen on the portal arch. They had a working refrigerator —though it looked more like a large square box made of dark-gray shiny stone—, and they had working lamps both inside and on the streets. So at least the girls wouldn't have to suddenly adapt to a primitive way of living. If they could shower and keep their food from rotting in two days, then maybe the whole farming thing wasn't so bad.

The girls were all put to work immediately after they settled into their new rooms. Of course, they didn't need much time to settle since the closest thing they had to luggage was their purses or coats.

They all quickly changed into the clothes they were given since they didn't want to risk ruining their own while working, and left their rooms to begin their duties.

Nina, in particular, was led to the kitchen by a thirty-something blond American named Scott. The rest of the residents of the house were outside with their backs bent over the growing crops. Nina was immediately put off by Scott, just from the way he carried himself, and he mumbled something under his breath about drawing the short straw, which Nina thought was very rude to do in front of her.

"There's not much to it," he said as Nina sat down at the kitchen table, a pile of long yellow plants in front of her. "You split the pod in three from the tip here, cut through this thin layer of skin, and remove the seeds. You put them in this bowl here and move on to the next pod. When the bowl is full, you wash all the seeds, leave the bowl on the table outside, pick up a new one and start over. Okay?"

"Got it," said Nina, trying to ignore the condescending tone of that last 'okay'. "But should I be the only one doing this? There are a lot of pods here. I feel like this would be more productive if..."

"We've been short-staffed on the farm for a long while," Scott interrupted. "So it's better to have as many people as we can out there instead of doing this. And since you're new here and don't know anything about farming..."

"I would if you taught me."

"That would take a while, getting you used to the routine, getting you in shape... and we're in harvest season, so it's just easier for everyone to have you on desk duty until the season's over."

"So, you're saying I'm in your way?"

"You're not in our way," he said half rolling his eyes. "It's just that you would slow us down at the time we have to be the fastest."

"That's exactly what 'being in the way' means."

"This job is important too. How can we eat the rice if we don't actually take it out of the pods? I mean, you get it, right?"