Smithfield has closed down its factory after approx. 300 employees tested positive for COVID-19 to protect their employees. They are one of the largest producers of meat in the United States, particularly pork, and are credited with producing 18 million servings of food per day.
What if more factories shut down, creating specific food shortages across the country?
This could bring about the menu from classic post-apocalyptic worlds where everyone eats the same processed foods. Maybe this brings about the creation of a drink that meets all human nutrition needs, like Soylent or the porridge from “The Matrix.”
Another way this could go would be to use insects for food, assuming the processing of them requires less human involvement. I haven’t done any research into this but it seems easy enough to create a process that would minimize the need of human workers, especially if it’s a necessity like during a pandemic. Within a story, it should be easy enough to come up with a feeder-like machine that forces grasshoppers into the processing machinery. Most people aren’t familiar enough with industrial food-processing and as long as it’s believable there shouldn’t be too many negative comments/reviews.
This creates the story world, what would the actual story look like?
I’m thinking this could be a solitary man, living alone in a large city, who meets a talking cat. Something with a heavy Murakami influence. The cats all adopt humans and are responsible for getting them to meet each other. Most cats don’t bother telling their human they are leading them to a potential friend but the cat who has adopted the lead character of this story tells him because otherwise, he won’t get out of his routine.
The friend turns out to be a young girl who is obsessed with anime. She has problems with her parents and with school and together they form a sibling-style friendship. Throughout the story, they have to figure out why the main character’s job wants to promote him even though he is happy where he is.
The girl becomes horrified when she finds out the man works for the company processing all the insects and he tells her he has no choice. The story ends when the girl gives up her moral ground and accepts her role in the cog of society. This wouldn’t have a happy ending.
It could be a series through the cats. Pick another two individuals and similar themes of alienation and loneliness because those are the types of people who would be drawn to communicating with cats in the first place.
