 Once upon a modern time there was a place where chaos and harmony both existed, where peace and war were constant, and where technology and poor eating habits coexisted. Indeed it was a modern time full of skyscrapers, tongue depressors and anti-depressants. There were centrifuges, kaleidoscopes, lemon-scented napkins, even 3-D internet chemical plug-ins… yet there were huge divisions among the people all because of vegetables. Vegetables, you ask? Yes vegetables. They were never eaten together. People always ate them separately. Not only did they eat them separately, but people of different regions and backgrounds would only eat the one kind of their division. Huge fights developed when people discussed vegetables, their nutritious qualities and their delectable flavors. Hot-headed carrot crazies would threaten the lettuce-lovers after hearing one say, "Lettuce balances spaghetti and sauce like no other vegetable can." Yet, because of society, the various vegetable-lovers were forced to live in the same neighborhoods - working in the same offices and sending their children to the same schools. Oh, a few were willing to try other vegetables in secret, but even if they did rather enjoy the forbidden food, their pride wouldn't dare let them admit that any vegetable could taste better than the one their forefathers ate. All the people in each vegetable section would say "The great Vegeta , creator of us all and our parts" would be displeased if they were open to any vegetable but their own. The people accounted for the fact that the different vegetable groups all said the same thing by saying that their Vegeta was indeed another Vegeta. Different pronunciations of the same word sprang about that emphasized different syllables (for example Vegeta, Vegeta, Vegeta) as well as hardening and softening the vowels. So, as we can see, this was a bad situation. A very bad situation. Hostilities increased as the harvests did. Cases were often reported of rotten vegetables being thrown at houses. A cucumber cult would get their hands on some turnips, let them rot and turn mushy and throw them at households known for revering turnips. To see mushy turnips smeared across their nice blue front steps by the dreadful cucumber cult was a terrible violation. A cultural taboo. Retaliations - usually involving a large number of withered pickles - took place and… and you get the idea. Sometimes the one group of carnivores in the area would get sick of all the silliness and throw anyone involved into jail for a while. Somehow these carnivores got hold of the prison system. No one could really figure that one out. Finally some of the head leaders of the different groups decided they would prove their own vegetable's superiority and rightful place under "Vegeta" in a more intellectual study. A lot of study with DNA had been going on for the past decade. Interesting patterns were found in organisms, and often the people of this bizarre world would find many messages encoded in DNA. For instance, by using a numeric code of the nucleotides (for example, A=2, G=4) in the DNA of an oak tree, somehow a very simple equation was found for calculating the area and dimensions of slightly abnormally shaped cylinders. Believe it or not, this was quite a breakthrough for a community that is constantly storing pickled vegetables in hundreds of jars in their veggie closet with little space left for the 'fresh' chilled compartment that had become almost a necessity to the people. A group of quasi-scientist hippies did research on the DNA of John Lennon (from a piece of hair one eager fan managed to get hold of and save over the years) and somehow deciphered the message within it through a strange code using amino acids and song lyrics saying "Where is the cranberry sauce? Strawberry fields forever and it's a good thing too." How accurate these quasi-scientist Lennon groupies were is yet to be confirmed… in fact many people were rather skeptical about that discovery with DNA. Despite this one deviant DNA discovery, most people had much faith and hope because the majority of findings through DNA seemed to indeed be very logical and helpful. So, these leaders within the individual vegetable communities went to their top scientists and excitedly explained this idea, that the master and creator Vegeta (all pronounced in their own individual ways) must have put the answer to the vegetable dispute within the DNA of their very own vegetable. The scientist's had much enthusiasm for this idea, and all the different ones immediately set out to the one huge laboratory of the region to find out this code that their wonderful creator Vegeta must have left in the DNA of their beloved vegetable. Each wasn't terribly happy that all the other 'Neanderthals' seemed to be testing for the very same thing, but each was quite confident in themselves, their vegetable, and their vegetable's place under Vegeta, so they all kept busy and to their own work without so much as a peek to see the results of the other scientists. After a rather painstaking process of laying out the sequences of amino acids for the vegetables, each one then sat for weeks trying to puzzle out the message Vegeta must be trying to give them. Unsuccessfully each sat for hours using their calculators, computers, heads and even feet to find an answer. The wastepaper baskets became full with scraps of sample codes, strange messages and empty doodles. The battery juice began to dry slowly away and discouragement began to seep in. Not even one of the scientists had come up with a likely message from Vegeta - and, they weren't working together either. It was disheartening. At night the cold dark labs brimmed with the wide and empty disappointment that perhaps Vegeta didn't leave a message after all. Late one unproductive night one scientist worked late by himself. He tried writing with his left hand (he was a righty). He stood on his head for a while to get a lot of oxygen filled blood cells to help trigger a bit of genius. He ordered out for a bottle of iced tea (he couldn't bear the thought of any kind of vegetable drink after working this intensely with a vegetable. He gave the delivery boy a little extra, gathered his things in a heap and headed out. So tired was he that he never realized he had a pretzel piece stuck to his cheek from falling asleep on them, that he never realized he had knocked the phone off his desk and not picked it back up, and that he left his room not only unlocked, but slightly ajar. He just shuffled out to his blue Saab and drove slowly away, almost running into a lamp post and a pricker bush. In the meantime, the young delivery boy was waiting outside the girls room of the laboratories. His mom had insisted that he bring along his little sister on the job with him so she could see what might happen to her if she didn't study enough. (can we say… fear?) And as the final scientist pushed the main door open and left, his sister pushed the bathroom door open, with a flush sounding behind her. As they walked down the dim and quiet hallway the delivery boy's sister (called Hatsu) remarked to her brother, Jules, "It is really neat being here at night. Can we look in a room?" Jules was rather curious himself. He was a rather intelligent boy who just graduated from college and was having a hard time finding a high-position job with a major of 'undecided, but I took so many classes they had to graduate me anyway'. He used to dream of working in this lab on occasion, working on developing an everlasting toothbrush, a white out that wouldn't cause a big lump on the paper, and a vegetable instant cloning developer. With this he thought perhaps he could send to a deep village country and feed the hungry. Hatsu had also thought about what it would be like to work in a laboratory. She had a burning desire to invent something that helped scrape bubblegum off of surfaces they won't come off of… They walked into the office that the teacher (accidentally) left open. There were pieces of code written on the chalk boards and the room looked rather untidy. Realizing what was being worked on (the initial interest everyone had in the DNA project died down a bit with time). Jules got rather excited and exclaimed to his sister, who demanded a clearer explanation to what all this chaos was really about. Jules leaned down and pulled out a sheet of crumpled paper with letters on it that resembled AGTATTACTGATCATCATGCA. After taking it in, Jules explained, "These letters stand for nucleotides. In groups of 3, the nucleotides make proteins. Certain proteins are formed with the combination of 3 specific nucleotides. One can figure out the proteins, and then put in the 1 letter abbreviation for it - that is one of the most simple codes." Hatsu watched fascinated as Jules desperately drudged up memorization from his 2 microbiology/chemistry classes. Unfortunately, the end result was a line of other letters… like TSATAVDA, which didn't make much sense either. And Jules was quite sure that the scientist had probably already studied that and come up with nothing using this, But now the bug of the code was biting him. He wanted to be able to break this code and find out what Vegeta has to say. He and Hatsu came from a mixed vegetable marriage so the family was fairly liberal - lettuce and cabbage are really rather similar. Jules had even secretly tried vegetables, and so had Hatsu. He felt a bit guilty about that though. Now he sat and tried to think of an alternative. "It shouldn't be too complicated to figure out. Vegeta wouldn't do that." , he murmured half to himself, half-to his sister, who had been quiet all this time and he thought was falling asleep. However, now she spoke up, "Jules, a lot of the different vegetable groups are doing the same experiment right?" "Yes, they are." "So they are all getting these kind of codes." "That is correct." "Jules, which vegetable are you working on?" Startled, Jules turned and looked at her. He really didn't know. And then she said, "I'm going to go find the sequences to the other vegetables." Jules smiled to himself. And they got to work. With much sorting, arranging and ordering, they combined all the vegetables to one string of letters which they hoped upon the holy lettuce fields contained the answer. The letters were: lwaanatetyslagataadvaeslsts. 27 was an important number to all people of the area, so they somehow fixed it so that would be the number of letters. Jules sat and stared at the letters. "It's like staring down at the blueprints of the world, except I can't focus my eyes." He thought. He started rearranging the letters: Latest atlas advantages always. No no… what kind of a message is that? A tall states advantages always. No! Staged TV as an always-late atlas. I don't think so. Savage always stated, tall Satan. NO! And then suddenly he saw it - the word Vegeta. Vegeta… Vegeta wants…all.. Jules could feel the sweat drip down his neck while his sister excitedly stood behind him clenching his shoulder. Vegeta wants all as… a …..a…a tasty! |
 cucumbers  radishes  tomatoes  parsley  okra  courgettes  no idea  asparagus  lettuce |
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There were only 5 letters left. What could they be? "Salad." Hatsu said with a firm resolution. "Salad. Vegeta is the same to all! He wants us to eat all the vegetables! As a tasty salad! Let's do it right now…" And they got a bowl, added lettuce, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, peppers. They sat together, held their breath and each took a bite. Delicious! Tasty…salad. They had done it! This was the answer! And they finished the salad and fell asleep, right there on the table. If only their dreams would tell them how to convince the rest of the world of Vegeta's message of vegetable harmony. |
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