by Fan Huang 黃凡
1.
The spaceship Hamburger 303 has departed, carrying the three of us from the New Colonized Galaxy.
“Hamburgers” were one of our ancient ancestor’s favorite foods. The reason why our huge fleets have called “Hamburger,” was indeed commemorative. For whenever we think of food, we can’t help but be reminded of our predecessors.
Little Gateau, Beany, and I, the three of us, were actually chased out of the New Colonized Galaxy. It was hardly honorable, but we don’t hold any grudge. (Remember, aside from EATING, there isn’t anything that can ruffle our feathers.)
The New Colonized Galaxy contains 10 to the 11th stars, that’s about a third of the Home Galaxy. From the name “New” we can infer that there was an “Old” Colonized Galaxy from which our ancestors colonized first.
It is said that many years ago the spaceship Hamburger 74 once boldly sought out the Home Galaxy with Captain Melon in command.
Whether Captain Melon was a hero or an idiot, we still have no definitive answer. (Again, we’re only interested in eating. Searching for answers we’re not interested in [like he did] just exhausts our brains.)
The story goes that Captain Melon lead his ship, the Hamburger 74, and three support ships to the limits of the universe searching for the Home Galaxy.
Time warped and Melon left his galaxy’s local group and entered the vast emptiness.
Captain Melon was stupefied — just think about it, the vast emptiness of space — except for nothing, there was nothing!
But Melon kept on going, eating up the first support ship on the way, for those ships were the only things he had left to eat.
He didn’t leave anything to waste, not even the screws which took a long time to chew. But after he had eaten through the second support ship, he burped and decided to turn back.
The situation had forced him to make this painful decision.
Time continued its wayward course, but finally our Captain Melon reached the first galaxy with shining stars. By then he had already consumed the last support ship and most of the internal parts of his own vessel, except for the engine and his seat on the bridge.
Whether Captain Melon was a hero or not, or something in between, his experience taught us an important lesson:
Never travel on an empty stomach!
2.
Speaking of hunger, I have a lot to say about it.
In our galaxy, we think of “civilization” as cyclical, but also as something of little consequence. Our “civilization,” which started from the first mouthful of food [our ancestors ever took], passed through 137 intermediate cultures and then came back to its original place.
What I mean by “original place” is that we discovered, after a long time of testing, that the “EATING” civilization was the acme, the purest of all civilizations. In this way, we began to judge all intelligence [in the Universe] by referring to that of the EATING civilization.
And in our galaxy, EATING for a while became the highest of all art forms. Once, for example, there was a time, which we called the Renaissance, when the Way of EATING was elegant like a performance art. Countless philosophers and critics of social manners joined in the movement and modified the Ways of EATING. They dug up good Ways of EATING from each century and established the “156 Standard Ways of EATING” and started publishing a periodical called “Trends in the Ways of EATING.” And when that publication was in its heyday, everyone subscribed to it.
When the Way of EATING became the behavioral standard and the main issue in ordinary life, the content of food made positive progress. Eighteen thousand types of food were classified — from amoebas to super dinosaur eggs (You had to enter those kind of eggs to eat them.). As long as it was something our stomach could digest, we would put it into some delicious meal.
However, if I only mentioned that there were many kinds of food, it would not reflect the brilliance of the culture back then. For instance, numerous Institutes and Research Centers of EATING were founded. Ph.D.s in Nutrition and Professors of Cuisine were everywhere. Ice sculptors and table designers rushed to and fro [between banquets].
Among these people the most influential were those that formed the “Delicacy Progressive Party.” These people believed that “EATING was supreme for the people” and that it was the duty of every citizen to search for the perfect recipe and so on.
The founding of the Delicacy Progressive Party not only expanded the vision of party politics (just think about it, a political party taking EATING to be its highest principle!), it also incited a [sympathetic] resonance among the underprivileged minorities. Moreover, the United Association of People Without Cooking Utensils promoted cooking utensils as a national resource, not just a consumer item. That organization, [accordingly,] demanded that the government strictly regulate the cooking utensil trade and at the same time make having a set of cooking utensils be the right of every citizen.
The Oral Disease Alliance propagated the so-called “Mouth Rights.” The alliance appealed the government to pass a “Mouth Benefits Law,” requesting fairer treatment for those who had cavities, those who wore dentures, and those who suffered oral cancer. They believed that each household should have a gargling set and that the government should impose a Special Tax for Retainers.
Organizations of many kinds and flavors blossomed in every corner, so everyone ate as much as they liked! We of the following generations don’t have anything but high praise for that wonderfully plentiful time.
3.
Thus, the EATING civilization, after having passed through countless centuries of refinement and development, in the end came to represent entire history of our culture.
There is nothing wrong with what I’ve said and there is no shame in this, but still no matter what civilization you have, it can never avoid decline.
A famous person in our history Dr. Bacon sounded this “Alarm of Decline” and, just as with Captain Melon, whether Dr. Bacon was a hero or an idiot it still in dispute.
Dr. Bacon was a leading computer expert. He devoted his entire life to trying to integrate computers with humans — for no matter whether it was for imbedding computers in humans or inserting the human body into a computer, Dr. Bacon would say that he had forgotten to eat and sleep because of his “Integration [Experiments].”
Of course, until he had achieved the most important breakthrough of that age, everyone thought he was a lunatic because at that time anyone who did not study anything related to EATING was considered wacky.
Nevertheless, Bacon the Lunatic put an exclamation point on that ultimately developed culture: he invented the Alloy Digestive System!
Nobody knows why he applied his theoretical studies to the digestive system and not the circulatory or reproductive systems. Could it have been that Bacon was not actually wacky, but in reality an “undercover conservative”? There is no need to discuss Bacon’s political inclinations now, but his Alloy Digestive System was simply a miracle.
In his Alloy Digestive System, he thoroughly rebuilt the digestive organs starting from the mouth and on to the esophagus, stomach, intestines, and anus.
Just think, a metalized digestive system…
This gave new meaning to EATING to people for centuries to come. Thus, in the “Housewife’s Dictionary of Ordinary Usage,” you could find EATING defined as:
“A movement in which you put anything that can generate energy — for example, oil, steel, ammonia.”
Hence, Bacon definitively altered civilization and at the same time sounded the “Alarm of Decline.”
4.
Beany, Little Gateau, and I, we are not dissatisfied with our metalized stomachs (In fact, they had some advantages.); but, to put it more accurately, we were ashamed about our people’s expanding appetites.
Yes, nowadays we no longer EAT, we gulp. An even more fitting word would be — DEVOUR!