$30.00
*ICKY HELFT – s/t c60**
*a war budget drafted entirely in spoiled produce, approved by a committee of lawn ghosts*
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### **DEPARTMENT OF SOFT CONFLICT (FRUIT DIVISION)**
**Fiscal Year: Perpetual Autumn → Suspicious Spring**
All numbers are approximate, sticky, and mildly judgmental.
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#### **1. STRATEGIC RESERVES (CITRUS ROT COMMAND)**
* 4,000 units **Collapsed Oranges** (budget line dissolving)
* 2,300 units **Lemons Gone Philosophical**
* 1 crate **Lime That Refuses to Be Cut**
**Purpose:** morale boosting / scent masking / pretending everything is fresh
**Status:** visually convincing, structurally compromised
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#### **2. GROUND FORCES (STONE FRUIT INFANTRY)**
* 7,500 **Bruised Peaches (soft-core division)**
* 3,200 **Plums in Existential Decline**
* 980 **Apricots That Remember Being Firm**
**Deployment:** scattered across turf sectors
**Effectiveness:** high initial optimism, rapid collapse under pressure
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#### **3. HEAVY ARTILLERY (MELON SIEGE PROGRAM)**
* 120 **Watermelons (cracked, leaking strategy)**
* 87 **Cantaloupes (classified as “emotionally unstable”)**
**Notes:**
Explode on impact, mostly into disappointment
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#### **4. AIR SUPPORT (FERMENTED DRONE INITIATIVE)**
* 14,000 **Grapes Transitioning Into Something Else**
**Flight Pattern:** erratic, buzzing, attracts unintended attention
**Observed Outcome:**
Increased aerial activity (birds, confusion, mild poetry)
---
### **FIELD REPORT: TURF CONDITIONS**
From the Office of Ground Truth:
> European chafer activity is currently invisible but plotting.
> Damage may appear this fall—subtle, almost polite.
> But the real reveal comes next spring.
Translation (as issued by the Fruit Committee):
* If your lawn **fails to green-up in April**,
it has joined the war without telling you.
* Brown patches are not absence—
they are **occupied territory**.
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#### **5. ROOT ZONE INTELLIGENCE (CONFIDENTIAL / SMELLS LIKE BANANA)**
* 1,000,000 **Invisible Decisions Made Underground**
No fruit allocated.
No fruit effective.
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### **INTERMISSION: CASSETTE INSERT FROM ICKY HELFT**
The tape plays a list backward:
> “budget… rot… list… war… fruit…”
Then forward:
> “none of this addresses the root.”
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#### **6. SPRING RECONSTRUCTION FUND (APPLE CORE DIVISION)**
* 5,500 **Half-Eaten Apples (optimism budget)**
* 2,000 **Cores Only (symbolic funding)**
**Goal:**
Convince lawn to recover through encouragement and denial
**Expected Result:**
Mixed. Possibly green. Possibly not.
---
### **ADVISORY FROM THE MINISTRY OF NON-FRUIT KNOWLEDGE**
A memo appears, typed cleanly, refusing to rot:
> For actual guidance on grub control and timing,
> consult materials such as
> **“How to choose and when to apply grub control products for your lawn”**
> by Michigan State University Extension.
The fruit attempts to ignore this.
It cannot.
---
### **FINAL LEDGER SUMMARY**
| CATEGORY | STATUS |
| ------------------ | ------------------------ |
| Fruit Strategy | Aromatic but ineffective |
| Surface Appearance | Deceptively optimistic |
| Root Reality | Untouched, ongoing |
| Spring Outcome | Pending / suspicious |
---
### **CLOSING STATEMENT**
The budget passes unanimously.
The fruit applauds softly as it collapses inward.
Somewhere beneath the lawn, something continues eating—
unimpressed by citrus allocations, unmoved by melon artillery.
And when April comes, the grass will vote:
* **Green** (recovery, maybe)
* **Not green** (truth, definitely)
The cassette clicks.
A final line whispers from the tape:
> “Next year’s budget should include… understanding.”
Numbered one time edition of 1.