From the Royal Academy Archives
Ten years ago it was fashionable in some circles to assert that so-called ‘reality’ was merely consensus on the part of the people who supposedly defined it for us all – scientists. Of course, anyone who has attended the Royal Academy knows this is utter nonsense. Reality is defined by consensus among Alchemists, and scientists, just like the rest of us, must accept it as given.
Things weren’t always this way. There was a time when Alchemists cared nothing for consensus, and you could hire them to create whatever local changes in reality you could afford. Thus we had princesses who dropped pearls from their lips with every word or slept for a hundred years, princes turned into frogs and swans, and all such stuff. More importantly, we had kings who were invincible in battle, heroes who ran faster than the swiftest horses, walls that came tumbling down, and so forth. And we had people trying to kill one another’s court Alchemists. Eventually, bad luck for the Alchemists came in the form of a peaceful period, under a single ruler who decided that he would best secure his throne by destroying any Alchemists who might be hired to oppose him.
Not being stupid, the Alchemists united to form the Mystic Guild of Alchemists, the bureaucracy to end all bureaucracies. Not only did this organization negotiate with governments on behalf of all Alchemists and enforce the resulting agreements by executing dissenters, it moved with such glacial slowness to approve any changes in the world proposed by its members that most people forgot about Alchemists. But Alchemists still exist among us, and their Guild, while it moves slowly, has a heavy tread. When the Guild approves a change in the world, Alchemists all over the world accept it – the ultimate consensus – and you and I have to live with the results.
What does this have to do with your diet? It’s no secret. All you have to do is look into the Mystic Guild of Alchemy Annals.
If you’re the sort of person who likes reading online patent applications, you’ll love the MGA Annals. You’ll find all sorts of interesting things in there. For instance, in the January 2006 issue you’ll find that enteric bacteria have become almost 25% more efficient at converting branched carbohydrates into simple, readily absorbable sugars. Know what that means for you? It means carrots are fattening now. Your intestinal bacteria will convert them into something you can digest.
In July, 2002, the MGA approved a change in human mitochondrial structure. Have you noticed that it takes you four hours’ worth of exercise to make up for one chocolate chip cookie? You’re more efficient.
Remember when you could lose weight on that cabbage soup? Cabbage is more digestible now (June 2005). Remember when you switched to the grapefruit diet? Hasn’t worked since April 1992.
What is the MGA trying to accomplish? The MGA Annals present reasoning along with their conclusions. And the reasoning that appears behind every one of these changes is the same; starvation. Each of these changes that make us fatter in the developed world is projected to reduce starvation in the undeveloped world. These are interventions on behalf of people who don’t get enough food, who need to get more energy from the food they do get, and who need to do more work with the calories they’ve taken in.
So the next time your diet unexpectedly stops working, or you gain five pounds by just looking at a cheesecake, you can blame an Alchemist. You can think of your waistline as being held hostage by a sinister quasi-governmental organization that will never let you be thin until its agenda has been accomplished. If you want to, you can even come over to the Royal Academy and throw a rock at the Alchemy Building, where our tireless researchers have been making people fatter since 1586.
No need to thank us.
