The Clarkl Soup Kitchens by Mary Carmen Read Free Book Online

showers are available at nearly every street corner, with soap and warm water. All sexes shower together.
    Mrs. Wade wrote that eleven more people from our town have signed the agreements to come to Clarkl for work. She told me my picture in the cookbook was one of the selling points. They will be on a spacecraft that arrives in September.
    A small interruption to my financial plans this year: the twins are moving to Denver to attend Stanford. I will have to help with the tuition. I still believe I will be just above breakeven when I return to Ohio .
    I’m still managing the dining room. We have no extra tables and no extra china, but the buffet line continues to grow. Every day I see new Clarklians, ones I have never seen in our dining room before. I’m not sure where they come from, but the manager says they are surely escapees from the Fundamentalists.
    December 25, 2144  
    Another busy year, with lots of changes.
    Patsy got so far behind that the loan company put a lien on my house. I quickly authorized the real estate manager to write a check for the full amount from my account, and now I am back to thinking about my options.
    If I stay here an extra year, I will have about $50,000 in my account and all my liabilities paid off. That means I can live on the $30,000 per year from Harry’s annuity in a free-and-clear house. Any extraordinary expenses would need to come out of the $50,000. I will have no health insurance until I am 75, approximately fifteen years after I return to Ohio .
    If I go home after ten years, I will have about $10,000 in my account and all my liabilities paid off. That’s very tight if something goes wrong.
    I’m still paying about $10,000 every year for the twins in graduate school. That expense ought to be done with in another year, but they will surely need extra money to help them settle into their jobs.
    I’ll never be able to get anything from Patsy. I’ll probably leave that receivable to be divided among the children when I die. Let them try to squeeze her.
    This year brought a little extra money, though. We earned a cash bonus for exceeding our quota of meals served for ten straight quarters, and everybody in the dining room and kitchen crews received $4,000. The farmers received $5,000 each.
    The cabbage crop was enormous this year, and we really didn’t know what to do with it. The Clarklians are not too fond of cabbage except in cole-slaw, which is very labor intensive. We have machines that chop the cabbage, but they never do a good job with it so it requires handwork before it is mixed. We fixed those cabbage spring rolls, too, but the Clarklians will eat them only to get the pineapple sauce we serve with them. We should just put out the sauce and let them spoon it over rice or potatoes.
    The Fundamentalists appear to be nearly out of business. Our manager says they have not met their quota of meals for over three years. Their meeting room was dismantled several months ago, but we never learned why. Our farm is still providing all their produce.
    My former admirer has become something of a celebrity here. He now has three lady friends, two on Tuesdays and one on Saturday evening. The women all are aware of this situation, and they apparently are willing to put up with his shenanigans.
    The ratio of men to women is certainly one reason why he is popular. We have about six women to every four men, and most of the women are over fifty. The men, recruited for farming, tend to be younger.
    The Seekers have given us ten robots for use in the dining room. They are very helpful with moving all the tables and chairs, cleaning the floor, cleaning each table and chair, and moving the tables and chairs back into place. I have set them up to work right after we take out the last dish after dinner. By the time we come back in the morning, the dining room is far cleaner than it ever had been when we cleaned it after a long day.
    December 25, 2145  
    I signed on for another year. The twins