The Alchemists' Folly

  


   Alchemy, the process of attempting, through experimentation of various kinds, was considered a type of 'magical process', as also it was in the early sixties when it was first practiced and was achieved successfully, although, secretly, with the discovering of the process on a Summer evening in nineteen sixty seven* in a basement in a city which heretofore must remain unnamed.
   Each experiment represents an attempt by the alchemist to turn, using heat and or cold or perhaps combinations of both or even at room temperature etc, and by the application and mixing of different forms of every other substance which is known to exist, in order to transform the base metal lead into pure gold.
   Seeing as their weights are both noted as being quite heavy and as both are at almost equal proportions to one another in their size to weight ratio and in their consistencies, lead has great malleability as gold is known also to possess.
   This equation appealed to the logic of the ancient alchemists and the goal was sought with much vigour after the practice was initiated, with the type of fervour maintained by any man with 'gold fever' and it has lead to both sides of the modern pharmaceuticals industry.
   There was, and is, but one flaw with the thinking of the spiritual forefathers of the modern gold bar churning and junkie making machine.
 That is, had those original alchemists succeeded in their goal, then they'd have inevitably destroyed their own civilisation, given the basis of gold in the daily employ of the local citizens as currency in exchange for items such as bread, the sudden influx of such large volumes of gold into such an economic situation would have created an imbalance in the proportionate value of goods to the extent where the necessities of life would quickly become unobtainable for the poor at first, and then amongst starvation would have quickly set in.

* Upon the successful experiment having been conducted, the original experimenter and discoverer of this process was tricked over a period of weeks, into revealing his process, at which time, he was immediately murdered.
   The secret was then kept hidden for fifteen years whilst the murderer enjoyed an insanely long, orgiastic feasting/drug binge period, financed by his sale of the original large sums of gold he had acquired during the course of his murderous exploitations.
   All of these, culminating in his accidentally stepping from a pier and disappearing into the Atlantic ocean, instantly becoming a missing person, to this day, just as he was reaching, to produce the written notes, revealing the process, to prove the boasting he'd made to his bemused crowd of fellow disco- dancers, with whom he'd sought breakfast, after leaving the 'Phoenix' club, early on a Sunday morning in May, 1982.
   Shaken witnesses described him, taking a step backwards, as he'd opened his coat to reach inside an inner pocket, and then, having suddenly, 'Just dropped out of view'.
   It is believed that he immediately sank straight to the bottom, very much as though he was heavily weighed down.