Everybody Has Their Reasons...

Hey Everyone!! :-)

Here's a little bit more of the third installment in the Petri Dish Chronicles! As always, the disclaimer is that this is a draft and, as such, it's unedited and likely full of errors and is subject to revision, revamping, and being completely scrapped and rewritten. But, with that in mind, I'm reasonably satisfied with the basics of it, at least at the moment, or I wouldn't have bothered posting it. Enjoy! :-)

Excerpt from Shifting Paradigms:

The group walked on as Petri turned to Chessie and asked, “Why would people risk it if there’s so much danger involved in using energy they trade for.”

The older woman shrugged. “So they can stay here longer. You know as well as I do that not everyone enjoys spending time in their body. There are people who are in permanent, excruciating pain from injury or chronic illness. There are people who are terminally ill and afraid to be in their body and feel it as they die. And there are some who believe that if their minds are in the rainbow when they go, some part of them stays here forever.”

“There’s absolutely no evidence of that, for the record,” interjected Vlad.

Chessie just shrugged and continued, “There are people who have sold or traded so much of their body to the grinders, the only way they can really experience anything and live their lives is here.”

Petri did know of such people. If someone needed a lot of money fast ̶ if they ran up debts they couldn’t pay and knew the enforcers would be after them and their family, or if they had someone they cared about they wanted to buy out of House ownership or Company contract, or if they needed to buy medical treatment for a sick or injured loved-one ̶ they might negotiate with the grinders to sell part of their body in exchange for a pile of cash. It was one of the few ways most underworlders could earn a lot of money very quickly. People who had gambling problems or someone they loved who needed long-term treatment might find themselves going back to the grinders again and again. Until there wasn’t anything left to sell but their lives. Some people would take that step and sell that. Especially, if they needed the money for someone else’s benefit. Other people stopped, but whether what they ended up with was worth preserving, or not, was debatable.

But Chessie was still speaking. “And some people just never were all that comfortable in their own body.” 

People like the woman walking next to Petri. She reached out to give her friend’s hand a squeeze, hoping her thoughtless question hadn’t cause the other woman pain. Chessie smiled back to show she was okay.