I was on my Grandmother's farm for the summer when the postman delivered it. The answer to the problem. It came in a white box, stamped with the logo of the US Dept of Agriculture, and a barcode. No name, no address; Grandma took it to the barn. What happened after that, everywhere else, was something I wouldn't know until much later.
Getting the most from things. Times called for innovation. Food needed to be more nourishing, fuel had to go further. Participate in the leaning of America. These are things I remember.
I was nearly twenty when my sister came to retrieve me from the farm. It was early that day. I had just finished processing what grass had sprouted, and the bugs I had caught at the light that night. I had placed the bags at the end of the driveway and started back toward the house when I heard her voice. My mind shuffled memories like playing cards and when hers popped up, and I turned around, it was hard to accept that she had grown so much.
"Monica?" I asked, before I could take back the words. I talked too much. I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep me from saying more.
"It's ok, it's me." She said, closing the distance between us as she might if I were dreaming. She looked like she was pained by my appearance. "I'm so glad you're all right." Her words must have raced across Nebraska, knocking birds off fence posts, bending grass like wind. No one talked like that anymore, talked so much.
I turned and walked again. She followed, this time quietly. I held the door as she walked into the house behind me. I had no place for her to sit, no glass to offer her a drink of water. She already knew this would be the way it was. She didn't know if I could be retrieved.
The farm around us was a sea of thick bladed grass. Corn grass. The method I used to mow, bale, and process the grass meant maximum production. I could fill three sacks a week. I didn't need furniture in the house to do that. I didn't need to go to town. I didn't need anyone else. Every day a Dept of Agriculture train-truck crawled down the road, picking up sacks of processed corn grass. Every day, I made more.
There had been smaller and larger versions of the tool that came in the box that day. One is in the barn, and one sits on the kitchen counter, where I turn corn grass, bugs, and sometimes fallen birds into ultra dense pellets for eating. The additives make it better for me. Some make me stronger, some give me better eyesight or cure common sickness, and some make me more clear minded. I walked to the machine and began to make another pill. When I finished it, holding it in my hand, and for a moment, just a moment considered the symmetry and perfect dryness. I tilted my head backward, looking at the place where the kitchen cabinet meets the ceiling, like I had done countless times before, and swallowed it.
Monica had looked away when I did. I waited for her to look back again, then stepped back from the machine so she could make one herself. "No thank you." Again, more words. I began to make her one myself. She didn't have a satchel, no way to make her own. It is a three mile walk to town, 25 minutes. Who knew when she left. "I'm fine, I don't take them."
Everyone took them. That's what we do. Who would not breathe? Who does not eat? Why would she say that? Why would she be so wasteful. It takes thousands of calories to eat enough unprocessed food to maintain her weight of what looks like 140 lbs. My mind decided quickly that she had decided to die. She was mentally ill, and as she had come all the way here, she was not being productive.
"I'm here to see if you want to stop all of this." She had read my eyes. "I stopped with the supplements, with the brevity, and it has liberated me." She suddenly looked less healthy, deluded to the point of sincerity. "I'm going to Colorado, where there are others. Come with me."
Others? A community of wasteful people? What did they eat? How was it sustainable? I looked at my sister's face, the same face I had known since I came to the farm just for the summer. I realized then that I had never left. I thought about Grandma, and how she lived with me here until she died that night. I remembered processing my grandmother for the corn grass. I remembered that I had been alone a very long time.
I could come back. When I had to. I could pack my supplements, my tool, a coat. If she was not mentally stable, I could take care of her. Along the way, I might talk to her.
As we walked down the driveway, I picked corn grass. They felt thick, ripe, and it was a shame I wouldn't harvest them today. They'd fail without careful harvesting. I'd have to start again.
We walked to the corner, where an old gasoline van was parked, The people standing next to it met my eyes with theirs. They opened the side door for me to get in. "Welcome. We're glad you came along." With that, and thankfully no more, we all got in and the driver pushed a blue button and the van began to move down the road. It was electric, and surprisingly speedy. We had hundreds of miles to go.

The dream wandered around after that, I went through a town that looked abandoned, but there were people inside all the houses. I saw boats on rivers harvesting algae, netting bugs. We were chased by physically exhausted but overstimulated police who could not keep up with the van. Their body armor, lack of vehicle, making the chase ridiculous. It was like running from zombies. We kept going, with dozens of towns between us and Colorado. The people I was with seemed to fret over routes, how we'd manage to get there. They ate from big bags of granola (ha) and ate raisins like they were candy treats.