"Anniversary"

Read it here. There are spoilers below.

I dashed this off in a day for the Big Think SF short story competition on the theme of "future food". It didn't get anywhere, and if you read it you'll see why: it's a confused mess. It has far too much exposition and at the same time doesn't manage to get across clearly what it's trying to explain. It's a failure in world building. I was trying to build up the revulsion / horror of the main theme — that people routinely eat their own flesh, which is produced by the same machines and processes which create the tailored artificial organs which keep them alive and extend their lifespans — and then cap that with the introduction and breaking of a final taboo — the eating of other people's flesh (in this case as a gesture of commitment / devotion).

I may come back to this one day, just because I don't think the idea itself is too bad, and I'd like another shot at doing it right. I also kinda like the term "Geneva Chicken". That may be the future version's title.