The Farmland Regeneration Act was an unmitigated success - grocery stores were once again replenished with
stocks of milk and meat, as millions of transformed humans became the new animal kingdom.
As the years passed, the needs of the program changed. Now that the infrastructure of livestock maintenance
was back up and running as a boom industry, transformed humans were in demand more than ever. Animals were
breeding, but not at the rate needed, and human overpopulation remained an ongoing issue.
It was decided to extend the age limit of the programme - now, people up to the age of 35 could be considered
for transformation. Because the age of the transformed scales to the lifespan of the animal they become,
people in this age range would likely become a mature adult version of their new animal form.
***
The first wave of letters under the new regulations went out last week.
And on Friday morning, Jessica went to the front porch to collect the mail. The chestnut-haired thirty-four
year old collected the bills and thought about picking up some groceries later on - the local store had
recently begun to get eggs back in. Jessica was grateful for such things, even if she didn't like to think too
much about the realities of the program herself.
Until then, that is - because amidst the bills and other trivial notices, was a red letter. Jessica's stomach
fell. Her seventeen year-old daughter, Beth, must surely have been selected for the program. Before Jessica
even had a change to contemplate what this meant, she noticed something else... another red letters...
***
Beth and her mother sat at the kitchen table, a red letter sat before each of them, one addressed to Jess and
one to her daughter.
"What do you think we're going to be?" Beth whimpered. "I don't want to be a smelly farm animal. Imagine if
we're pigs!"
"We might not even be the same species, honey," Jessica replied. "But there's only one way to find out."