the Headmaster's anteroom: the machine can't miss a meal
A competitive athlete cannot skip meals without terrific metabolic distress.
Context
Stated as a hard law of the trained body: skipping a meal isn't discomfort, it's "terrific metabolic distress." Hal's viscera are audibly rumbling like a whistleless kettle because a body drilled to burn at competitive rates has no reserve to coast on. The regimen doesn't just demand output; it makes the athlete metabolically fragile, a machine that fails fast without fuel.