Same Work, Different Day

I had heard about Blue Moon the first time when it appeared on the news, when it made its debut. My house wasn't a mansion, but it was a home, and it's better to have an old stone roof compared to no roof at all.

My house was literally on the sides of Belmont Beach. Inevitably it was going to be like this, considering the more higher end areas won't accept a living quarter made of such material.

The thing about Blue Moon was that it was a particular nootropic that came in the form of pills, tablets, and in some cases, cough syrup.

The company I work for, Saturn-Voyde are partners in business with Mortiqar, the pharmaceutical company that was initially releasing this nootropic. So far, Blue Moon was intended as a Decouan product, that it had to go through years of testing before it would be eventually shipped worldwide.

Myself and other Decouans have been educated that all products that come from the outside world must be inspected, regardless of its form.

Hair products, machinery, food, drink, clothing, hardware, software, animal produce, animals for display at exhibitions or zoos, items of archaeological history, the list goes on, and is as long as one of the local highways that connect Ranasalta and the farthest city of the east, Veno.

I had never consumed Blue Moon in my life. The nootropic was designed as a mood booster, as some people would call it, to increase the brain usage by 10% and mostly serving as a motivator for people who were….I wouldn't call them depressed or overwhelmingly sad, I would just say that they're not happy at the moment.

We all have our forms of stress, oftentimes we face them in our lives. Sometimes we unconsciously create that stress and end up putting a toll on ourselves in terms of physical and mental energy, mostly the latter.

Saturn-Voyde was no exception in terms of stress. You would have to clock in at exactly 8 in the morning, and unless you had events that could not be missed, such as family events, then you were expected to be finished at 4. Some of my co-workers used Blue Moon to cope with the stress. The pill or tablet would be the one to take when it came to relieving stress.

The cough syrup on the other hand was intended as a small form of medicine to cure minor diseases such as coughing and flu. They were all coated in the same dark blue as the next product.

A few months after the Tsunami hit Decou, Mortiqar announced that they were going to include syringes for Blue Moon. This was particularly useful for people who had trouble consuming the pills or cough syrup, especially for those who had trouble swallowing and eating food in general.

I've been working for Saturn-Voyde for almost 5 years now as a full time employee at this point. My internship was done long ago in college, but the company was extremely appreciative of my work ethics and skills. They decided to hire me on the spot by the time my graduation was complete. As time went on I continued to see more and more people consuming Blue Moon.

Did I believe in stress? Of course, it is a natural thing to occur to us human beings whenever we are facing any situation that is deemed uncomfortable.

What I don't believe is that we all fall into it and think getting out of it is hard. Maybe it's hard for some, I'll agree, but if we were to fall into a well, would we just stick there and expect someone else to rescue us?

Cause if you were on a stranded island, I doubt you would play the waiting game. Same goes for stress, you gotta do something about it, you can reach out to people which is very understandable. We can't live life forever without having some form of connection with anyone nowadays.

But we also cannot expect people to have all the time in the world for us, because they have their own lives.

And I totally understand that.

My co-workers relied on Blue Moon quite a lot to a certain extent. I barely remembered any day in these last 2 years when they didn't consume it.

Sometimes they would do it in the early morning, before they even step foot into the office.

Others would preferably bring a packet consisting of 6 blue tablets and share it with their friends during lunch time or brunch. Either way, they could consume it as they're eating.

In some cases, Blue Moon was snuck into meetings by the staff. I found it odd at first, when a co-worker of mine literally did that just to deal with senior worker Regan who loved to enforce people to not laze around or even joke at work.

This was before Regan started to develop his womanizing ways, especially when last year, we received a new batch of interns.

I wasn't in the mood for some TV just before I headed to work. After I answered the last question from the DataPod that visited me, I asked it to give me some news regarding today.

I wasn't very happy at seeing it.

[2 more deaths confirmed to be caused by Blue Moon overdose]

***

I don't know Lucio that much beyond him being my neighbor and him originating from the country of Bianco, but what I saw him as a Decouan who wanted to make life the best for himself.

He was not different from any other man or woman living here, regardless if they were a native or not.

President Kharisma welcomes all immigrants and foreigners looking to visit Decou, especially welcoming them with open arms if they choose to stay here for the remainder of their lives.

Of course, there are some things to consider.

You'd have to be checked by as many members of the law as possible, which will happen to me soon enough.

You'd also have to respect one another and if conflict rises, you'd have to do it in a civilized manner, otherwise the Ministry of Society will ensure that you get sent to Reformation Camp.

I've heard talk about the RC for a long time ever since I was in high school. At the time, students who misbehaved to the point where physical or emotional harm were subject to the Reformation School. The School in particular was essentially Decou's juvenile hall.

But take those teenagers and kids and subject them to chairs and strapping on noise canceling earphones on them. In addition to those earphones, picture them listening to wavy-like music as you were to be put in a trance, as well as have them read a couple of messages to remind themselves who they are in Decou, what their place is, and who they should be to others.

Decou is asking for basic human decency. At least that's what Kayr said the vast majority of the time he's being interviewed about both the Reformation Camps and its schools.

You'd be surprised at the amount of time the average captive is held at either the camp or the school, it's less than a week for the most part. Some people may require more than a week, but there's been a hundred or so people coming and out of the place within a month.

More people may find themselves getting into the camps for the most part, since its schools have been made specially for misbehaving teenagers and children whose actions may cause harm to the society we live in.

This applies for every single area in Ranasalta, including Belmont Beach.

Right now, I was brushing my teeth the second time. I had woken up way too earlier before, and sadly my bird watching couldn't be done because only blackbirds were here, which were as common as the hamburgers from the local chains of Super Burger.

As I stepped out, I saw my watch. I still had time to reach the offices.

"Elotro." spoke Lucio with a much more calmer tone. He noticed me heading a few inches away from my house. Our houses and the houses near ours were pretty much close to the beach where all the yellow sand crystal clear water was located.

"Yes Lucio?"

"Heading to work?" I nodded at his question.

"Same Work, Different Day."

He raised an eyebrow. "Where's your bike?"

"Being fixed, it suffered a broken engine."

"Darn, want a ride? I'm just about to head into downtown."

I gave my thanks as he opened his garage and out came a bright yellow dune buggy. Lucio was a mechanic, and he did services for various clients who would bring in their cars and demand any service available, car wash, engine check, oil check.

He does the same thing for motorcycles and sometimes trucks and big rigs if they ever pass in the city.

If there's anything to be joked about the big rigs in Decou, is that they can be tall and maybe tough enough to knock down an entire building.

As we both entered his dune buggy, we strapped our seatbelts on. When he started up the engine, he asked me. "You heard the news?" I nodded.

Lucio stammered. "Blue Moon is damn at it again with the death count. When will people realize that taking too much of that will actually kill yourself?"

I ask myself the same question, Lucio, I ask myself the same question.