The Midnight Candy Swipe

The Midnight Candy Swipe

         This was the greatest year in human history, 2099.
         There was no war, no disease, and for humans no work.
         The people of 2099 had everything; an abundance of toys, of games of food and time. Children and adults were much the same in mind. The whole human race was at play every minute of every day. In the bad old days it was humans that worked. The children of old history would be put to work at the age of 6 in the coal mines, the textile mills and working the land in the fields.
         All of that now was ancient history.
         Now there was a new age. It was an age where time was playtime.
         The toil of work was left to robotic machines; butler-bots, service-bots and appliance-bots. They did every task or job a human used to do in the bad old days, in history; from ploughing the fields and tending to the animals on the farms, to fishing the seas, building the houses, fixing the roads, driving the buses, posting the letters, transplants in hospital operations, to changing the light-bulbs, putting your socks on and wiping your nose, the robots did everything.
         People, adults and children were left to play all day long.
         And there was one game that was very popular. So popular it had captured everybody`s imagination. The world of 2099 was in rapture over this game. The stupid people of the past were so stupid they couldn`t think of such a game.
         The game was called eating.
         It was so simple, even the most stupid people could do it. All you had to do was open your mouth and throw something in. You didn`t even have to chew sometimes. And this game could be played anywhere; at home or in the park. You could do it standing, sitting, walking or running. What a game? The greatest game ever it had long been decided.
         However there was a problem with the rules of this game. There were no rules. There was no limit to the amount of food a boy or girl could eat. And as a result the boys and girls and every adult were fat.
         Not just fat in a nice puppy dog way. They were huge. Obese the doctor would call it.
         Every person on the planet was obese.
         Full up to the eyebrows and still the boys and girls shoveled the food in and never stopped to think. Because there was no rule saying you could only eat a bit. A plate full perhaps for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the past, in history such rules existed. But not any more. There was no breakfast, no lunch and no dinner. There was only eat, eat, eat.
         In the bad old days too the people would eat meat and vegetables and desert. Not any more.
         In 2099 the food of choice was sugar. Who ate meat and vegetables? Meat is for dogs and vegetables for rabbits. Sugar was for people.
         Everybody was addicted to sugar in all its varieties. In 2099 sugar is more valuable than gold or silver. The world was hooked on sugar and it craved nothing else.
The boys and girls of 2099 were like the dinosaurs of ancient times. They had grown larger than any other human in history. People were now the size of elephants. An average baby weighed two stones. The average boy or girl weighed twenty stones. The reason for this was sugar everyone was addicted to it.
         The earth was like a cherry on the top of a great galactic sized chocolate cake sitting on the table of the universe, slowly being eaten by people.
         But there was a problem.
         Too much sugar was being eaten.
         Boys and girls were too large, too fat.
         The earth could not take anymore. Because all that sugar going into the boys and girls mouths, was coming out the other end as a lethal gas that was heating up the planets atmosphere. The polar ice caps were melting. Disaster was on the horizon.
         Something had to be done to stop people from eating the world to death. And so it happened.
         The United Nations, all the worlds` leaders, presidents and prime ministers were called into a secret meeting code named, The Balanced Diet Project. And so a deal was struck to place the whole world on a diet. Sugar was top of the agenda. It was to be removed all together, wiped out. At least for twelve months. And a balanced diet of meat and vegetables installed as the staple foods of all the boys and girls.
         But this was no easy task.
         The world was flooded with sugar. It would take an army of millions to collect it all up and it had to be done quickly. Once people realized what was happening, it could lead to the third world war. Careful planning was needed. There was only one such army large enough to carry out such a task. And all that needed to be done was a little re-programming.
         So the date and time was set.
         And with the world asleep, at midnight, the great sweetie swipe started. 
         No person heard the gentle midnight hum of ticking machinery above the cocougheny of snoring, bellowing out from unhealthy over weight mouths in chubby faces.
         No one noticed a thing. Any noise that was heard that may have stirred a round head on a pillow would have been quickly put down as a service-bot cleaning, or preparing food, or doing the laundry. And normally the service-bots would have been doing those things. But not tonight, changes were being made.
         Every robot had been secretly re-programmed as agreed by the United Nations.
         This Sunday night the service-bots would forget their chores and begin the great swipe of all the worlds` sugar, sweets, chocolate and cakes, trifles of custard and cream, doughnuts, jam, fudge and all sugary drinks.
         Fridges and freezers, ladas, cupboards, pantries and shelves were silently raided and cleared of any food containing even a grain of sugar.
         Milk, white and dark chocolate of every flavor was gathered up. Cakes and tarts of every kind taken. Ice-creams of every color and mix swiped. Boiled sweets, soft sweets, fudge, caramel, nougat, marshmallows, popcorn and any sweet drink, you name it and it was collected.
          Thousands of more service-bots, road diggers and cleaners and butler-bots were re-programmed to collect and gather the horde of sugar and load it into rockets. Thousands and thousands of rockets were used.
         Several hours of feverish activity through the night came to an end successfully. Every sweet and grain of sugar had been successfully loaded onto the rockets.
         Why rockets? The moon seemed the safest place to store all the world`s sugar for twelve months 384.000 kilometers away from earth and sticky fingers. With no atmosphere, the moon was effectively a giant space fridge.
         10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 BLAST OFF!!!
         All at once the thousands of rockets ignited with no more noise than a car engine revving, and blasted off into the night sky on a journey to the moon.
         The great moon crater of Ptolemaeus, a massive 164 kilometers wide was filled with the sweetest of treasure, like a pirates horde on a desert islands beach.
         The sun broke over the horizon, hiding the stars and the moon in a beautiful blanket of blue sky, and the sleepy heads of all the world`s children awoke and shouted its butler-bots into action to serve them food, sugary food.
         ` I will have three bowls of triple chocolate sugar coated puffs in strawberry milk to start my day,` demanded one typical fat girl.
` Bring me a bag of marshmallows and a chocolate fountain,` came the order from another waking boy.
         ` Trevor!` one boy called Pominsky Flabbart cried out to his little butler-bot,
` Trevor, bring me the fridge, I can`t decide what I want so I will have a bit of everything.`
         Little Trevor duly did what he was told as normal, as butler-bots were there to do and not question there masters bidding. And Trevor politely asked the fridge to come into the bedroom from the kitchen to his master Pominsky`s bed. Like a penguin the fridge hobbled, on two short stumpy and awkward legs to Pominsky`s bed side.
         Pominsky opened the fridge door. Then promptly shut it again.
         ` Is this a joke Trevor? Did you forget to go shopping in the night?` Pominsky asked Trevor sternly.
         Trevor started to shake. `I had no choice!`
         ` Trevor,` shouted Pominsky raising out of the bed like an elephant out of mud. ` What have you done with all the food?`
         Trevor’s vibrate function was stuck on with fear.
         ` There is still food in the fridge master, ask the fridge,` said Trevor.
         The screen on the fridge door which had been watching the whole episode said in a French accent, ` we have fromage and fruit-!`
         ` Shut it!` demanded Pominsky delivering a punch into the fridge door.
` Fromage and fruits, has the world gone mad. I mean proper food, cake, chocolate… cake. Now Trevor where is it?`
         ` I…I…I threw it out the window!` shivered Trevor, collecting a sock Pominsky threw at his antennae.
         ` You’re lying,` said Pominsky, ` You can’t do anything I don’t tell you to do first. And I never told you to do that.`
         ` The United Nations re-programmed every service-bot in the world last night, to steal, I mean take on their behalf all the sweets. I had no choice master,` Trevor explained.
         A look of terror flashed across Pominsky’s round face and his big bulbous cheeks glowed red with anger.
         ` Aaarrrggghhh!!!` screamed Pominsky, pushing the fridge out of the way, swinging his huge sausage like leg kicking poor Trevor, who was no taller than a Jack Russell dog standing up on its hind legs, clear across the room, hitting the wall and rebounding into the television-bot, which apologized saying, ` I`m sorry I am always in the way.` And out sprung the voice of the news reader, who confirmed what Trevor had said.  As every channel announced the breaking news that the whole population of the world had been put on a diet. No sugar for a year. And the remaining supply had been blasted off to the moon.
         Pominsky looked up at the sky out of his bedroom window, and burst into tears, ` Why? Why? Why?`