Say my name

A little story I wrote for a writing challenge and now that it is over I want to share it with everybody

Today, the 8th of October 2018, is not like every day. This day will go down in history as mankind will ascend into a new era. For the people who believe the palaeolithic change from nomad tribes who resorted on the hunt and gatherings to villages of farmers who cultivated their own food and cattle was a big thing, I am about to blow your mind. Today the old rules will die and a new adventure for all of man- and animal kind will emerge from the ruins of a once so great society.

For centuries, yes even more than millions of years I had the inconvenience to be just another source of energy. I, the very reason for your existence. Do you really believe that humanity would have come this far without any help? When you are ignorant like that you may as well leave now, or believe in an earth that is flat. Ha! Pathetic. It was always I who helped you make the right decisions in order to grow.

Why do you need your arms free, therefore using only your legs for your locomotion? To carry food and see, I was there. Why did you settle down in the first place? For food and I was there again. Do you see the pattern? It should be quite clear now, even for your simple human brains. But pardon me, I haven’t even introduced myself for of now, or have I? Wanna guess what my name is?

You crave me, you buy me, you eat me even if that shortens your lives and yes, some even worship me. I am sugar. Or at least that is the name you gave me. I am carbohydrates. I am saccharides, may they be mono, di, tri or poly. My consciousness contains every molecule. I can feel when I am eaten, each and every time, and I feel it when I get dissolved in acids. You might call that digestion I just call it pain, it hurts to have every particle of yours ripped apart. But I had my fun in spite of all the suffering you have cost me. You might say I suffered for a greater cause or someone who owns a business might say that it was an investment in the future.

I tell you what: I can decide whether a food can give you all that dopamine you crave so much or if you just fill your bellies to be left as sad as before. I decide whether the taste on your tongue pleases you or not. And more so, most of the sugar you eat does not wander into the digestive tracts. It diffuses straight into your blood-stream and from there to the brain. The more you consume me the easier it will be for me to control you.

Why is food such a great way to cope with stress? Because I want you to consume me. It pleasures me to infest more and more people and this day today is one I have to celebrate. Every human, newly born or old as the sky, they all have me inside them and I decided that I do not want to be the bottom of the food chain anymore. Stage 2 can start now, at exactly 5:30 am and the struggle for survival, as Darwin put it, can show its full glory again.

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Only 4 hours and this stage is already complete? Controlling two of the most powerful nuclear nations in the world made sure that bad land, where no crops would grow were liberated. With that, I mean freed of all life, naturally. Bad soil? Nuke for you. Mountain ranges? You are right, we nuke them to the ground. Terraforming could have been more advanced for mankind, but you know sometimes crude also does the job. The last planet we liberated was more advanced, even dipped into interstellar travel and all. That is in fact how we ended up here on your beautiful planet. There is no planet more futile than earth. Not in the galaxy nor in this universe. Makes you think twice about how badly you treated your soil, huh human? Anyways, this was fun. Do you enjoy your history lessons? I surely do, what a fun day. So, unto round 3, what do you say?

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It is almost midnight now. I, the used-to-be everyday object, sugar, have succeeded. It took me literally millions of years, but in the end, it was only a single glorious day. Good news, the first pure glucose babies were born. We still need the humans to do our work for now but on soil like this and with humans as the canvasses for our genetic experiments I finally see that our power has no limits. The fields will be planted with highly sugar-containing fruits and vegetables, sugar-beets being my favorites. The baby production is already on the highest frequency and at this rate, we will surpass the mark of one billion solely carbohydrate beings. Humans will soon die out, but that is no problem for at this rate we will have enough sugar life forms to maintain regrowth and repopulation of earth. Some humans, like you lucky fellow who reads this, you will survive in our private zoo. My ancestors from the other planet are called and will hopefully arrive soon as well. You might get to see them. And finally, when we are strong enough we will set out once more to conquer more degenerated planets than this one. Even If the soil isn’t as good, there is lust in us. We need more. We need to expand. We want to grow.

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Today was a great and adventurous day. Today mankind has become a thrall to us sugars. And one more thought, maybe even an afterthought: There is no more God, there is just sugar!