Noble

"Today's expedition will be lead by Two of Diamonds, participation of young male members of your group is mandatory, have all your men prepared by noon."

The man spoke with conviction, clearly he holds a higher status in the community than the rest of us.

"Distribute according to their contributions on your last expedition." The man spoke again while making a hand gesture signaling us to get the boxes on his trolley. As I expected, it's food I am tasked to distribute.

He looked calm and collected, he delivered the boxes, said what needs to be said and just left without another word. His steps were graceful, his posture was respectable, looking incongrous with the post-apocalyptic setting.

I'm not willing to take risk by inquiring the identity of the formally dressed man from Four, I just carried the box labelled "3" back to the building I came from by myself.

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This is a problem, the man said to distribute the food according to contributions during the last expedition, I wouldn't know who did the most work and henceforth deserves the most rations to commend his efforts.

As I stand awkwardly in the centre of the hall that supposingly belongs under my management, not fully certain of my next best course of action, I reassessed the situation in the room.

This box I'm holding, yes it's bigger than the average box from a furniture delivery, and it's so heavy that I'm sweating profusely carrying it, but theres 34 people, with myself it's 35, there's no way this is enough food for everyone.

The people were staring at me perplexed, wondering why I'm just standing there doing nothing.

This is a nightmare, anticipations from others, I can't stand it, I avoided their stares and directed my own gaze onto the box.

When I opened it, it was stuffed completely full with loaves of bread, what a bland and pathetic meal this is.

If I just distribute this evenly, then the ones who worked harder during the expedition will protest.

Wait, hold on, only during the expeditions? But only men are allowed to participate, what about the women, children and the elderly? Do they just not get food? Is that why there's only one box of food for each group? But they can't just starve, can they?

Wait no, if I remember what the man said verbatim, it was "participation of young male members of your group is mandatory."

All men must join, that probably doesn't mean the others can't join, maybe they could volunteer? I'm making assumptions, I probably shouldn't be making assumptions.

Well, I guess I only see one way out of this situation without starting conflicts.

"Everyone, I hope for you to listen to me." Oh man I'm not good at speeches, I spent my life locked in my room playing video games after all.

Actually no, I think there was a time when I excelled at communication, when was it exactly...ah I can't remember, I'm just gonna hope they can all listen and understand my upcoming speech.

"I know the distribution of food has always followed a strict system, one where efforts translates directly to rewards. I believe this system to be inhumane, and wishes to change it within our group."

As I said these words, I feel as though I was once a part of the debate club in school. Was I? I can't remember.

"Think of the physiological differences between us, are we really expecting a five year old to contribute as much as a twenty five? No, no way, I wish for all of you to remember the reason you walk out those gates, it's for humanity."

That's an information from the earpiece that came in clutch here. The fact that the Diamonds community wishes for the restart of civilization was something I could use to convince the people.

"We're doing these for the future of humanity. Right now, I believe we are blinded by the rewards, we are fighting for our own selfish reasons instead of the greater good, I don't think that should be the case, should it?"

I'm dying deep down inside, I hadn't made a speech in front of this many people in a long time. Wait, have I made one before?

"I believe from now on, the food should be distributed evenly, you are contributing for humanity, not for loaves of bread, remember your noble resolve. I think we all did incredible."

It's an unfair system to begin with, how I get to make the decision of who gets more food based on who I think did more work, it's a system run by prejudice.

Since I'm in charge of distribution, I could just say I think everyone contributed evenly in my opinion if I'm ever questioned by the superiors.

The main reason I decided to make the speech before actually distributing is to try to avoid conflicts, I'm trying to minimize the dissatisfaction of those who thinks they deserve more for their effort.

I think it's inevitable that they will protest if I didn't at least give my reasons beforehand, actually, even if I did, they still might voice out their objections or worse, start conflicts, so I guess I can only hope for the best here.

After the speech, there were discussions among the people, I could hear the murmurings but not the content of their conversations. It was awkward, really awkward.

After about 2 minutes of standing there waiting for a response, I thought I'd just start dividing the bread into 34 equal parts, I'm not that hungry, they can have everything. Besides, it's only around four to five bites of bread each, I might as well not eat.

There weren't any enthusiastic agreements, nor was there any enraged objections, I divided the bread by tearing them apart and grouping them together repeatedly without any interruptions from the surrounding crowd.

When I was done, I went around the hall passing the bread to everyone. What makes it less awkward is that occasionally, I received a few thanks.