She stood at the kitchen counter, peeling an orange, her fingers digging into the flesh and pulling it away in strips to reveal glistening, unblemished fruit. She popped a piece into her mouth. It was juicy and tart, but not overly sweet. She ate a second piece, and then another. Perfect, like the first. She sighed and threw the rest of the orange into the bin beside her.

In trying to create the perfect product, they always neglected some minor detail—something which they no doubt considered to be a defect. Their Chicken tasted just like chicken, their Milk like milk, etc., but they were lacking some crucial element that she could never quite put her finger on.

Whenever she mentioned this feeling of hers to her husband, he’d become exasperated and explain yet again how these products were exact replicas of their natural counterparts, right down to their genetic makeup. But she could always detect a slight difference and she never felt fully satiated, no matter how much she ate.