The Basic Outcome story

This is the Basic Outcome story. The idea came to me from people on Basic Income internet discussions talking about the need for people to write short stories about what life would be like if there was a Basic Income. I began thinking about this and when I had thought about it enough, I began writing this. I do not think it is exactly what these people had in mind.

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Ruthie Kazurdle woke up one fine morning in alternative time line number DFL70709102-C614 for planet Nearth. It was the twentieth year of the Basic Income revolution.

For breakfast she popped down her last nutrition bar from the nutritional cooperative, then carded one of her last water credits into the meter. She waited for some water to gurgle up so she could wash down the nutribar, brush her teeth, and wash her face.

She slipped out of her subsidized flat on the thirty seventh floor of the Van Parijs economic housing complex and zipped down to the Basic Income office, next door to the housing complex office. After a brief wait, only one hour, she was able to speak to a case worker about the basic problem she was having with her income.

“My roomie Angie Bajanji! She’s disappeared. She hasn’t been home for a week an’ I can’t find out nothing about her. She’s never gone this long an’ always says where she’s going. She took her travel bag and some clothes but all her other stuff is still there; her books, a trunk, this crystal ball statue thingee…”