People Like cake

“Slice it any way you want; it’s cake all the way down. Think about it. What’s the peak of it all? You could be having sex, snorting coke, or eating a double fudge layered chocolate cake. Those are your options in this life. You can try meditating—and good luck to you—but it will never bring you peace like a piece of chocolate cake.

“Consider the following: you’re eating a creamy, rich wedge of chocolate cake. Pretty great, right? In fact, there might not be anything better. Sex comes with strings and mess (and puns), coke comes with addiction (or sometimes cola, which has more sugar than cake and also used to contain cocaine), and fresh air is for hippy campers and bears. You can tell yourself that contentment lies in camping, but we all know deep inside that it’s all about cake. You could be wanted for murder and still be happy with a mound of fluffy chocolate in your mouth. And if you got caught for that murder, and they were going to execute you, you wouldn’t order hotdogs and roasted marshmallows for your last meal. (You wouldn’t order cake, either, because that would remind you of how much you don’t want to die.)

“It’s something we can all agree on. Of course, some “people” don’t like chocolate or cake or happiness or whimsy, but they’re like insects or rocks or chairs—their feelings don’t matter.

“So that’s it then: chocolate cake is the ultimate pleasure, the ultimate purpose. It’s the pinnacle of human desire. Your morals might tell you to love your child, but didn’t Nietzsche disprove morality a hundred years ago? And besides, if you got to repeat one moment of your life over and over, you’d choose the moment of that sweet baked cake sliding across your tongue, leaving a trail of buttery milk chocolate on the way down your gullet. Watching your child being born is what you say your life’s most profound moment is, but it’s the quiet cake days you’d prefer to revisit. Children don’t taste as good as chocolate. Trust me, I’ve tried both.

“You tie your shoes so you can go outside; you go outside so you can make money; you make money so you can buy cake. Cake. Cake is where the questions end. If you have it, you have it all. Cake. Full stop. Doesn’t get any better than cake.

“And if all this is so, if chocolate cake is the highest possible goal, then that means chocolate cake drives everything—puts the wheels of progress and destruction in motion. What do we fight for when we go to war? Freedom, of course. And what would we do given full, uninterrupted freedom? We would, I say unto you, eat cake. That’s right; your great-grandfather died so you could enjoy dessert. When Hitler did that thing he did or whatever, he did it for cake. Now it all makes sense, doesn’t it? Now the cogs are clicking into place. The cake place.

“You’re following my logic and it’s starting to scare you. I can see it in your eyes. ‘Do I really love my husband?’ you ask yourself, ‘or is all this just for a stupid piece of sugary bread?’ The answer is no… and yes. You don’t love your husband, and you would sacrifice him for a small piece of sugar-bread. You and I are one in the same. One in the same? And the same? I don’t know. It’s all the same. Just like the cake.

“But I know your mind is blown right now, and don’t worry; I’m here to guide you. Through all the seemingly senseless killing and war, I’ll share this one piece of sanity: we can overcome our zealous and reckless pursuit of chocolate cake. Yes, we can lay down our arms and diffuse our bombs. Because when you think about it, cake isn’t really worth the violence. When you think about it, you realize… Pie is much better. People should go to war over pie instead of cake. I would fight for pie.”

“Mr. Davies… you murdered your wife in cold blood.”

“If the crow flies straight… You know what I’m sayin’?”

“No. No I don’t know what you’re saying. That’s the problem. All you’re doing is talking nonsense. We already have the evidence; we just need a confession.”

“I told that woman not to do it. Every year, she slams that boy’s face into his cake. Everyone always laughs. Not this time. I told her. I told her.”

“So you killed your wife because she played a prank on your son?”

“She ruined that cake for all of us. A perfectly good face and a perfectly good cake.”

“So you killed her?”

“I stabbed her in the neck with the cake knife. I didn’t kill her, though. She died of blood loss.”

“Because you stabbed her repeatedly in the neck.”

“Yeah but… that’s like saying I killed somebody if I pushed them in front of a train. The train killed them, not me. What am I obligated to save everyone that falls on the tracks or bleeds from the neck?”

“...”

“I can see you’re having trouble finding the words. Do you need me to explain the cake thing again?”

“Your wife pranked your son and ruined the cake…”

“Yep.”

“You stabbed her multiple times in the neck, slicing her jugular…”

“Correct.”

“You killed her over a piece of chocolate birthday cake…”

“Close.”

“And your justification is… well… You feel it all makes sense because…”

“What can I say? People like cake.”