The Clarkl Soup Kitchens Read Online Free Page B

toilet. The tiny bed, not much larger than the one in the spacecraft, is shoved against one wall, and the easy chair is in another corner. I also have a card table with Sunday-School-room chairs, those old wooden folding chairs that frequently break. The floor is a cheap linoleum somebody must have donated; it tends to curl at the edges.
    The bathroom offers running water, which I was delighted to find. If I want a shower, though, I have to go down to the main building. I do that just before I go to bed each day.
    So far, the roof has held against the winds. I have seen no precipitation. Certainly the nights are very cold, and I am happy we have the electric blankets, as advertised.
    The day is just about an hour longer than at home. I am almost used to the new clock, and I have stopped awaking too early. Like a baby learning to sleep, I guess.
    The complex has one large building and dozens of little houses for us workers. The large building faces the road, and our guests enter and leave by its front doors. Then, a sturdy fence surrounds the little houses, attached to the large building at its rear corners.
    The large building is a huge dining room in front and a large kitchen in back. Separating these is the cafeteria line, and the guests can see the Earthlings and the Earthlings can see the guests.
    I am still trying to get all the types straight. I have never seen a Monarch, but I can tell a Drone at fifty paces. These Drones are tall and thin, with faces that look as if they have been bashed in from both sides. They, like all Clarklians, have no hair. I understand they are wild about copulating, even though they are sterile.
    The Drones are my favorites, so far. They are very pleasant, unlike nearly every other Clarklian. When I meet one on the serving line, he (?) always smiles and sometimes bows.
    The work is long and hard. I am getting used to it.
    We start very early to prepare the first meal, and the doors open just as the star comes over the horizon. Usually we prepare oatmeal and serve it with a pineapple sauce. This is a great favorite with our guests, and we never have any left over. Sometimes, though, we prepare a sloppy type of Cream of Wheat and serve that with maple syrup. This is not as popular. With the first meal we have a kind of tea native to Clarkl. Water, which is very plentiful on all parts of this planet, is also served.
    We rarely see any children. The Clarklians are very careful not to allow their youngsters to starve, and they themselves feed the children in groups. Our guests are the society’s dregs, entities who are unable or unwilling to work.
    We tend to make large batches of cooked food and store much of what we make for later. However, we are not allowed to turn anybody away if we have food to serve, so sometimes we have to quickly pull stored food from the enormous freezers or from the shelves of canned goods.
    The number of meals served per day has steadily risen over the last two years, according to our excellent manager. She knows, also, that the dining room managed by the Fundamentalists has not seen this increase in volume.
    I started with vegetable stock, and, after I had filled the freezer with many gallons, the manager moved me to breads. I have been on the bread team for about a week. On this team we use enormous mixers with kneading attachments. The dried yeast comes from Earth, getting here just a few weeks before its expiration date. How nice the kitchen smells while the many loaves of bread are baking!
    Again I have developed a reputation for hard work and little skill. Each day I feel better about my contribution.
    December 25, 2137  
    We have only an approximation of the Earth date here, but we celebrated Christmas today.
    The natives smiled when they first saw the trimmed tree, a grapefruit bush in a barrel about five feet high. Each of us made a decoration from paper or plastic food wrap, and the variety of several hundred Santas and stars was quite a sight! The farmers