The Story of the Cape: God’s Cold and The Origin of Philobaekogy

April 28, 2011 by Carlo Alvaro 12 Comments

In the beginning, there was only God. He created light first, to see what he was doing, and then created the heavens and Earth. But he had in mind humans. They required special creation through a long process of evolution. He wanted to make the heart pumping blood through blood vessels by rhythmic contractions, the eye with its important task of detecting and focusing light on the retina, the patella and its function of knee extension, and the mitochondrion with its role of producing adenosine tri-phosphate during cellular respiration.  He wanted humans to be very special creatures, possessing self-consciousness and the gift of language. He used water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen and mixed them up to generate DNA.

Having completed his work, he rested awhile, for he began having cold symptoms. He looked down to Earth at a small village and called a group of skilled men, and ordered them “Bake me a cake.” The men began work immediately, though they knew not what a cake was. Each man worked alone. One was considering various plants, wheat, barley, and oat. Another was mixing water and flowers, obtaining a sweet and aromatic potion. Eventually, they decided to work together. One of them proposed that they grind some grains of wheat and barley obtaining a flour-like product. They also added ambrosia, mandrake extract, and flower potion. They shaped the compost into a round shape and let it set for a while. But before they brought that to God, one man said “we had better taste it first.” They all had a small wedge—and they all died afterward.

Later on, a group of curious villagers found the rest of the cake and started investigating the mysterious death. They soon realized that the cake was the cause of the death, and that it had to be thoroughly baked before they could serve it to God. They baked it, let it cool down, and then sampled it. This time the cake was safe to eat, but God was not around. The men decided to have some more cake, in the meantime, and to write about its taste, its recipe, its nutritional value, and other such aspects, also in an attempt to find out the original ingredients. They continued eating the cake and continued their research and writings for some time until they finished the cake before they could figure out its ingredients.

Sometime later in the village, a new generation of men heard about the story of the cake. They began writing about the cake based upon the writing of the group of men who had tasted the cake. Unfortunately, the cake was not there anymore. This new generation had to rely upon their imagination in order to say something about God, the cake, and the previous generations of bakers.

Much, much later on, yet another group of men, and this time women, too, began researching the events pertaining the bakers and the cake. They would address themselves as “philobaekuses,” or lovers of baked goods. They would write about the cake relying upon the writings of the previous generation of writers, who in their turn wrote about the cake based upon the writings of the bakers who had the advantage of tasting the first baked cake and study the first generation of bakers who were poisoned by their own unbaked cake.

This newest generation of men and women did what they could. At one point, some of them baked their own cake claiming to have discovered the original ingredients. Others created a caricature of the cake using real sponge to make the layers, cherry-flavored toothpaste for filling, and shaving cream as frosting. Others tried to de-construct the cake. Yet some others even began doubting the existence of God and the cake.

No one ever knew the truth, however. The truth is that God caught a cold and needed something to cover himself with. His voice sounded muffled due to his clogged nose. So, what was understood by the first bakers as “bake me a cake” was in fact meant to be “make me a cape.” And as for God, he died of pneumonia and his celestial cadaver disintegrated in the cold depths of the universe.