From long before anyone could remember, everyone in Weston sat down to eat dinner in the big tent in the middle of town.
Once a desolate wasteland, Weston had grown into a lush and bountiful region. The little tent that provided refuge for the first families had now grown enormous and famous the world over.
Every night, without fail, the Cook served a delicious meal to all who gathered in the tent. The meal was always free. The menu changed nightly and always surprised. The food was prepared deliciously to satisfy every appetite and was always enough. No one could ever figure how the Cook did it. The Cook would never say. When the region was barren, the Cook brought forward plenty. When the region blossomed, the Cook brought forward plenty. When drought occasionally visited, the Cook brought forward plenty.
Assured that they would be fed a full meal every day, the people of Weston, freed from much of their fear and anxiety, instead pursued whatever pleased them. First, big families. Next, big industry. Finally, big prosperity.
From big prosperity sprung the lazy and envious; the lazy being bored in their comfort and seeking only change and new pleasures; the envious believing themselves more exceptional, seeking only to differentiate from all the rest.
Professing themselves wise, the lazy and envious instead became fools.
As the traditional meal was the constant - unchanging, and equally available to everyone - they first disdained the traditional meal and stood outside the tent, mocking the Cook and all those who went inside.
Next, they used their big prosperity to build their own restaurants and to convince others to leave the tent to eat with them. No matter how they tried, they could not provide a comparable meal and left their diners hungry and wanting. Many complained and started returning to the original tent.
Angry that they could not outdo the Cook, the lazy and envious then committed to change the very nature of the meal. Abandoning all common sense and willfully ignoring the requirements for nutrition, they replaced all the key elements of the meal with piles of sugar and spices, and endless new sauces and dressings to be spread over grasses, leaves, and previously discarded animal parts.
They then used their big prosperty to concoct and disseminate endless lies about the virtues of their new diet, and to attack and scandalize those who continued to eat in the tent. Ever more hungry and angry, they grew more and more impatient, eventually making overt threaths to convince the weak to take notice and emulate them.
The weak, lacking the courage to stand up to the threats, started to skip meals in the tent, partaking in the new diet as often as needed in order to please the lazy and envious. Still, the Cook allowed them to visit the tent as needed to get proper meals.
Eventually, the weak grew proud of their strategy. Making a virtue out of their cowardice, they convinced more and more in the tent to join them. Eventually, their numbers swelled and the large group now demanded that the Cook serve the new diet as part of the daily meal in the tent. The Cook gave them all the spice, sugar, and seasoning they desired.
Not satisfied with the benevolence of the Cook, they increased the frequency of the new diet. Even as their health continuously and noticably deteriorated, they claimed with great zeal that their new diet would continue to improve and was the only way to good health.
Hungry and disdainful, they came to worship the envious and lazy who had once terrified them and joined forces with them to destroy the tent. Believing their own lies, they became filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. Cook-haters, gossips, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invented ways of doing evil; they denied their history and disobeyed their parents. Quickly, they lost all understanding, fidelity, love, and mercy.
Eventually, they succeeded in closing the tent. Still, the Cook continued to feed the remnant who cried out, now bringing meals quietly and dependably to all their houses.
Writhing in agony and severe malnutrition, the lazy and envious, and the multitude of cowards who had been convinced to follow their ways, could no longer summon the strength to get to their new restaurants. Falling prone into the streets of Weston, and preserved by the spices they had gorged themselves on, they were beset continuously by legions of hungry insects and wild animals.