Cabbages – Carolyn Rudinsky

Far away in a distant land the most prized of all things were their cabbages. The cabbages were spectacular and were grown in all colours and sizes. There were purple cabbages, and red, green and yellow ones. Tiny blue ones and orange ones bigger than umbrellas. Red sparkly ones and subtle gold babies. There was nothing more special than cabbages.

Cabbages became currency. They outdid cash, bitcoin, PayPal, Visa, after pay, eftpos, and all other monetary forms.

Cabbages were worshipped in churches, temples, synagogues and halls. They were revered in every region.

The people of this distant land were simply obsessed with them. But this form of infatuation was unhealthy, and the wisest of the people knew it couldn’t continue. An anti-cabbage committee was formed and secretive meetings were held. Their dastardly plan was to wean the people off their obsession with cabbages.

A plan began to take form. A cabbage-destructive fly infestation was the goal. A plague was what was needed to take out all the cabbages. It had to be total, it had to be complete. Nothing less than a total annihilation could work. To partially wipe out cabbages would only make any that remained more revered. The committee worked toward their goal of instantaneous, 100% cabbage ruination.

The cabbage flies were grown in secret labs where they grew fat and greedy. They multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. The timing of their release had to be perfect.

On a day that will forever go down in history as the day of the cabbage fly, a black buzzing cloud was released simultaneously from all the labs in the land and cabbages were erased from existence.

Eventually the people recovered, and like waking from a mania, order was restored.