RANGE: Health food stores, juice bars, guru ranches, Buddah camps, slimnasiums, vegetariums, macrobiotic discount outlets, mucus-free dinner theaters, high-fiber swap meets, organic tofu hatcheries, biodegradable potthrowing encounter groups, human potential nude rug-hooking bees, holistic urinary retention seminars, and homeopathic open-air write-your-ownceremony closed-bag funerals. HABITS: Elf Alpha is the nagging voice which tells you that if it tastes this good, it must be bad for you—and that if it tastes this bad, it must be good for you. Frequently, he enters your home—and your life—hidden away in a harmless looking bottle of Flintstones One-A-Day Vitamins. Before you know it, you are scouring the beach for iron-rich seaweed, browsing on cottage cheese mold, and sipping clotted ewes’ milk, in the naive and blasphemous belief that such a vile and wretched diet will enable you to live forever. He promises to improve, restore or initiate your love life, if you will only quit smoking, eat ditch weed salads, and learn to wiggle your ears. He suggests applications of yak excrement for receding hair, bat guano as a breath freshener, and daily total immersion in a tub of parsnip juice, after which you can throw those unnecessary eyeglasses away! HISTORY: Elf Alpha is descended from that legendary American folk hero, Johnny Appleseed. But while his famous ancestor planted a delicious, nourishing, and natural food source across the continent, Elf Alpha has arranged for the nationwide importation, distribution, and ingestion of viletasting “organic” vittles scorned and despised even by the third-worlders who cultivate them. His closest living (if you can call it living) relative is the odious Mung Goblin. Elf Alpha has most recently been living (and working) in Southern California, in harmony with the Sweat-sylphs, Passing Fancies, and (intermittently) the West Ghost. SPOTTER’S TIPS: A victim of Elf Alpha’s malpractice exhibits such ghastly and glaring symptoms that he is as hard to miss as a leper on the swim team: eyeballs the color of saffron, complexion like stale tofu, blackstrap molasses breath, a body hairless as a tortoise egg, and limbs as thick and sturdy as dandelion shoots. Look to the victim’s withered shoulder, a frequent perch of the Elf Alpha, where the latter squats in a full lotus position and whispers, “Eat it raw!”
棲息地 健康食品店, サラダ・
バーのお店, 自然食レストラン、
天然果汁入りジュースのなか、
玄米ご飯, 麦トロなどのなかに
いる。この妖精たちは、人間の
耳もとで, 「そんなにおいしいの
なら身体に悪いにちがいない」
とささやく。 またその逆の場合
は,「そんなにまずいのなら身
体によいはずだ」 ともささやく。
そしてビタミン剤などにまぎれ
こんで各家庭を訪問し, 長生き
幻想を与えながら美食家あるい
は過食家の人間たちに護摩札を
売って歩いてもいる。
最近、この妖精たちのささや
き声にまどわされた若い女性た
ちが拒食症におちいって、命を
落としているケースが多発して
いる。 「イエスタディ・ワンス・
モア」などを歌っていたカレン
カーペンターズさんは, 太り過
ぎを気にして減量をはじめ, つ
いには拒食症になり, 56キロあ
った体重が30キロにまでなって
この世を去ってしまった。
習性 この妖精たちのいたずら
は、まず太り過ぎを気にさせる
ところからはじまる。 エアロビ
クスの精などとおなじ手口だ
が、 健康食品の妖精たちは、自
分のからだを動かさずにやせた
いという横着な人間たちにとり
つき, 神さまから人間にさずけ
られた大欲望のひとつ, 食べる
楽しみという欲望を奪ってしま
い、毎日、味気ない天然・自然
食品ばかりを食べさせ, 最後に
は食べることがいやになり、死
にいたらしめる。
この妖精たちは, じつは,ソ
連が第3次世界大戦用に開発し
た, とっておきの秘密兵器では
ないかという情報がNATOを
はじめ, 西側諸国の首脳部のあ
いだでうわさされている。 つま
り、健康食品ばかり食べている
人間は、ものの考えかたが変わ
り、性格がおだやかになり、 闘
争心がなくなるからである。
もしこれが事実だとすれば,
この妖精たちの威力は,現在ア
メリカが開発中の下痢を起こさ
せる細菌を入れたビフィダス菌
爆弾よりも強力なものになるだ
ろう。
歴史もともと人間は自然を克
服するところから文明の第一歩
をしるしてきたのはずなのに,
この妖精たちは1960年代の初め
ごろから 「自然に帰れ!」 をあ
いことばに登場してきた。そし
て, 横着なインテリたちの支持
をえ, きょうの流行につながっ
ている。
私立探偵の情報 あなたのそば
に近づいてきて「なまで食え!!」
とささやく人物がそうである。
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Habitat
Health food stores, salad bars, natural food restaurants, natural fruit juices, brown rice, barley porridge. These sprites whisper in human ears: “If it tastes that good, it must be bad for you.” And conversely: “If it tastes that awful, it must be good for you.” They also slip into vitamin bottles and visit homes, selling protective charms to gourmets and overeaters while peddling the illusion of longevity.
Recently there have been frequent cases of young women led astray by these sprites’ whispers falling into anorexia and losing their lives. Karen Carpenter, who sang “Yesterday Once More,” became concerned about her weight and began dieting — eventually developing anorexia, dropping from 56 kilos to 30, and leaving this world.
Behavior
The sprites’ mischief begins by making people worry about being overweight — the same approach as the aerobics sprites. But the health food sprites target lazy people who want to lose weight without moving their bodies, stealing one of the great desires bestowed upon humans by God — the pleasure of eating — forcing them to eat nothing but bland natural and health foods every day, until eventually they come to hate eating entirely and are led to death.
There are rumors circulating among NATO and other Western leadership that these sprites may actually be a secret weapon developed by the Soviet Union for World War III. The reasoning: people who eat nothing but health food undergo a change in thinking, their personalities become gentle, and they lose their fighting spirit.
If this is true, the sprites’ power would be more formidable than the bifidus bacteria bomb currently being developed by America — the one designed to cause diarrhea.
History
Human civilization was supposed to have taken its first steps by overcoming nature — and yet from around the early 1960s, these sprites appeared with the rallying cry of “Back to Nature!” They won the support of lazy intellectuals and connected to today’s trends.
Field Intelligence
The person who sidles up close and whispers “Eat it raw!!” — that’s them.
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