Every morning starts the same.
The buzz of the alarm shocks you semi-conscious. You smash the snooze button three or four times while reluctantly regaining awareness.
You sigh when you remember where you are, and every morning you almost decide not to get up. But then you see the old photograph pinned above your bunk. So you get up and go through the motions.
Brush, rinse, repeat. Save the spit for the recycler. Use the toilet. That gets saved too. Sonic shower. It's all you've known, but you suspect it's not as satisfying as it could be.
A quick breakfast of rehydrated protein mash, with a dab of your one luxury: ketchup. Well, ketchup-style-tomato-flavoured sauce, to be exact. It's supposed to taste the same, but you wonder. And that's why you're here.
You tuck the old photograph in your pocket, pull on your coveralls, and head outside.
Hand raised against the glare, you survey the arid land. Not a living thing in sight.
You've heard stories. Green fields that stretched to the horizon. It sounded like myth, until you met the old man.
He talked about rivers and forests and hot showers. And real ketchup, made from real tomatoes, grown from seeds planted in the earth.
You take one more look for luck. In the photograph a man stands in a field of green. On his face, a smile. In his hand, a red orb. A fresh tomato.
You pocket the old photograph, grab your tools and get to work.
