Hiccups. Are they all there is, or are there other things as well? Are they creatures of magic or are they, too, bound by the laws of physics? What is their melting point? Who really killed John F. Kennedy? These questions and many others have pressed hard against the minds of all or else less than all people for thousands if not substantially more or fewer years. Today it is finally time to present the collective science of what they are and how to kill them.

What are Hiccups?

What are Hiccups? Ask someone off the street, and they’ll tell you to leave them alone. But ask a scientist, and they’ll tell you that nobody really knows. So you go back to the street. You wander aimlessly, alone, dejected, empty. Eventually you find a hole, and you curl up to die, never truly knowing what a hiccup is.

Stop! This is what the scientist wants. He knows what a hiccup is, but he is afraid that once you find out, you’ll become too powerful. Go back to the scientist. It’s later now, he’s gone home. The secretary will know where that is. You knock on the door. He doesn’t answer. But your curiosity is too great. You push the door open. There he is, sitting on his couch. There is a fear in his eyes now, and the fear is growing steadily. He can see what you’re capable of. You set the door down on the floor and approach the scientist. You don’t need to ask again, he knows what you want. And so he explains to you the following:

Hiccups are an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm.

The scientist was right not to tell you before. Already, you can feel the raw power of knowledge surging through your veins. But with every word, more questions appear. Who controls these ‘involuntary’ actions? If a hiccup can arbitrarily contract the diaphragm, can’t it also expand that diaphragm? How big could such a diaphragm be? Could it eclipse the earth in size? The scientist can see your curiosity, and he goes on.

Thousands of years ago, the first hiccup was born to True Gods Snezurus and Burgelmon. Hiccup was a cruel child, he sought to inconvenience all mammals. When Burgelmon realized what he had created, he went to destroy Hiccup. But Hiccup foresaw the attack, and lured Burgelmon into a trap. While Burgelmon was trapped, Hiccup slowly drained him of his power until he was no more. This is why animals no longer have to Burgel.

Of course! This explains so much. Now that you know who Hiccup is, you only need to know how to defeat him and take his power. You ask the scientist,

How do I defeat hiccups?

The fear in the scientist grows rapidly. He can tell what you are trying to do, but he is powerless to stop you. His hands are shaking. Sweat is dripping from his brow.

There are a number of ways to fight hiccups.

1. Scare to death:

Hiccups have weak hearts. This is because they do not have to pump blood. We can take advantage of that weakness by giving them a big ol’ spook. Lean off of a tall building, get on a roller coaster, yell really loud without warning, whatever it takes. While a heart attack can stop a hiccup temporarily, it may eventually realize that its heart is not a vital component. If this happens we can fall back on

2. Suffocate

Hiccups are parasitic. They lack the ability to acquire oxygen, and so they must rely on the oxygen of other organisms. Although it is impossible to hold your own breath, you can ask a friend or hire a stranger to hold your throat shut for whichever duration is necessary to rob the hiccup of its air supply. From there, your own immune system should be enough to kill the hiccup and consume its energy. If this fails, however

3. Drink from the far side of a glass

“I’m drinking from the wrong side of this glass, what are you gonna do about it?” Imagine saying that. Feels good, right? Now imagine being the hiccup. What are you going to do about it? You really don’t know. That doubt you have sown into the hiccups mind will eventually destroy it. But if not

4. Wait it out

Science tells us that hiccups will not go away on their own. In the rare cases where it has happened, no explanation can be provided. According to the theory of quantum hiccups, however, simply waiting will be sufficient. Eventually your consciousness will grow tired of the persistent hiccups and leap to another parallel reality in which the hiccups have been fought off, vanished mysteriously and without cause, or never existed in the first place. It is believed that our current reality is the True Reality, the one from which all hiccups have either been vanquished or simply evaporated.

This newfound knowledge is more powerful than the last. But something is wrong, you’re not growing more powerful at all. If anything, for the first time in your life, you feel weak. You can’t seem to move your arm. You fall to the floor.

The scientist is different now too. The fear is gone, and in its place is something strange, something unique. There is a mad, evil spirit within him. He begins to cackle. This was no scientist at all. You have been lured here, all of your choices have been the result of manipulations. Now it is too late. Now you are to be vanquished by what you are just realizing has been Him the whole time. This is Hiccup himself.

The End

(And the moral is that science is a conspiracy of evil.)