The Iliad, Performance-Enhanced

The Iliad, Performance-Enhanced
By COLIN McENROE

And Achilles made fast to strike at the walls of Troy, but Odysseus
cautioned him and said, "The sons of Priam are mighty. Let us first make
use of Androstenedione."

And Peleus's son Achilles said, "I do not know that name. What goddess,
muse or sprite is Androstenedione, that we may pray to her for victory?"

"None of those, but a nutritional supplement that raises the level of
Testosterone," whispered the wily Odysseus.

"Does Testosterone fight as a soldier in the ranks of our flowing-haired
Achaeans? How is it that I do not know his name?" asked Peleus's son.

"Rather is Testosterone an ichor in our veins. It thickens our sinews
and inflames our hearts."

So the Achaeans partook of Androstenedione, and thereafter, wherever
they spat, hair would grow up from the earth.

"It does, however, cause mood swings," Odysseus admitted later, after
Achilles slaughtered the inhabitants of Chryse and smashed the temple of
Apollo there, because of a disputed restaurant check.

Now the god Apollo was angered by this and appeared to the men of Troy
saying, "You will face the greatest Achaean in battle tomorrow, but not
without the aid of Creatine."

Hector applauded, saying, "I knew Crete would not stay out of this, and
now they have sent their warrior-king Creatine to save us."

But the wise god Apollo said, "Say not that Creatine is a man,for it is
instead an amino acid that . . . look, just take it, O.K.?"

"It says on the side of the bottle, 'Not recommended for use by persons
in whom burns the unwearying fire of Pallas Athena's divine breath,'"
noted Paris. "'Or by persons allergic to shellfish.'"

"Just take it," the healer and archer Apollo said again.

"I use a kava kava and shark cartilage supplement already," said Aeneas.
"Is there any danger of a negative interaction?"

"If this continues, I'm going to scream," said the mighty and ingenious
god.

But Zeus went cloaked among the Achaeans and gave them turtle glands
marinated in ephedrine and desiccated with brewer's yeast, and Hera,
seeing this, visited her favored Trojans and fed them spirulina mead
infused with equine growth hormone.

And many from each side sacrificed to Anabolis, goddess of steroids, so
that when the day of battle came and the Olympic Committee for the
Ilionic Wars conducted the customary tests, each warrior's urine caused
the testing cup to burst into flames.

And the bravest and mightiest of each side cast off his therapeutic
magnets, and the fight was joined.

Now as a wild boar having fed on ginseng will charge down from the hills
did Hector hew among the Achaeans, and as a mighty bear gorged on
protein powder will pounce upon helpless fish, now did Achilles lay
waste to the Trojans in his path.

There fell, as a white poplar topples, Amphimachos, son of Aktorian
Kteatos, a pioneer in the use of enzymatic hawk liver, and pierced in
the chest by an Achaean spear was Othryoneus, who introduced pollen and
lycine tablets to warfare.

When the day ended and the strong-greaved Achaeans withdrew, Achilles
had slain two and sixty Trojans, eclipsing the modern record set by
Agamemnon.

Then did the press gather around his locker to find Achilles heavy with
weeping.

"For all of my glory, I am strangely depressed," cried the warrior.
"Does not one of you have any St. John's Wort?"