The Unbearable Heaviness of Scones

I never meant to become mayor. In fact, I never meant to leave my apartment that day, let alone stumble into political office in a town that was not on any map printed after 1973. But fate, like a squirrel on espresso, has a tendency to dart unpredictably across the road of one's intentions.

It all started with a scone.

I had gone down to the corner bakery—“Ye Olde Crumb Depot,” a name suggesting historical relevance, though it had opened just last February—for my customary Tuesday scone and tea. I emphasize Tuesday not because it matters, but because routine is the last bastion of the bewildered. I ordered the cranberry-orange scone, which is my favorite because it contains both fruit and regret.

Upon biting into it, I felt a peculiar tugging sensation—not in my mouth, but in the very fabric of reality. The bakery shimmered slightly, like it was trying to load a higher-resolution texture. I blinked. The bakery was gone. So was the city. I was now standing in the middle of what appeared to be a town square populated entirely by men with enormous beards and women who looked like they had been born skeptical.

A man with a feather in his hat and suspiciously diplomatic eyebrows approached.

“You’ve returned!” he said.

“I have?”

“You must be famished after your time in the Quantum Scone Portal!”

“I—pardon?”

“Come! The mayoralty awaits!”

Before I could explain that I had no qualifications to run a microwave, let alone a municipality, I was hoisted onto a platform and adorned with a sash that read, “Honorary Interim Eternal Mayor.” This seemed both temporary and permanent, which is exactly the kind of contradiction politicians thrive in.

The town, as it turned out, was called “Upper Lower Widdershins,” a village so remote that even GPS asked politely not to be taken there. It was founded in 1683 by a group of Puritans who thought the regular Puritans were too permissive. Their motto, proudly etched into a weathered stone in the town square, was “No Dancing, No Knowing Why”.

I tried to refuse the position, but this proved difficult as no one in town seemed familiar with the concept of refusal. They simply blinked at me, nodded solemnly, and brought me a ceremonial gavel made of hardened marmalade.

My first official duty as mayor was to oversee the annual Goose Weighing Festival.

“This year,” said Mrs. Tatterboots, the Head of the Festival Committee and unlicensed chiropractor, “we expect a record number of gooses.”

“Geese,” I corrected.

She narrowed her eyes. “Not here, we don’t.”

The weighing was accomplished using an elaborate contraption involving pulleys, a see-saw, and what I’m fairly sure was a repurposed trebuchet. Each goose was solemnly presented, weighed against a unit of measurement called the “standard herring,” and given a score based on squawk volume and feather density. The winner—a goose named Kevin—was crowned with a small tiara and escorted to the mayoral bathhouse for celebratory molting.

It was around this time that I began to suspect something was off.

Not just the obvious things—the lack of plumbing, the rampant mistrust of doorknobs, the church that was also the post office and a chili restaurant—but something subtler, like the way every dog in town stared at me with accusatory familiarity.

I voiced my concern to Reverend-Spatula Gregory, the town’s multi-purpose spiritual advisor.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “You're not the first accidental mayor. You're the twelfth. The Scone chooses the mayor.”

“You’re telling me this town is governed by breakfast pastries?”

He nodded gravely. “It’s tradition. And also prophecy. Mostly prophecy.”

I decided to resign.

The townsfolk, upon hearing this, gathered in a circle and began humming what they claimed was the “Ballad of the Resigning Mayor.” It was eerily melodic and involved surprising amounts of yodeling. I waited for the appropriate moment to say my goodbyes, but was informed that I couldn’t leave until I performed “The Task.”

“What task?” I asked.

“The Task,” they said, with the capital T clearly audible.

It was never explained in full, only alluded to with dramatic gestures and references to ancient scrolls, which turned out to be old restaurant menus stapled together and annotated with stick figures. Eventually, I was handed a rusty key, a woolen cape, and a live squirrel named Malcolm.

Malcolm was to be my guide.

We ventured into the woods to retrieve “The Thing That Was Misplaced,” which is apparently different from “The Thing That Was Lost” and vastly less polite than “The Thing That We Never Talk About.”

As we journeyed, Malcolm would occasionally chitter and dart into the underbrush to retrieve items he deemed “symbolically relevant,” including a broken ukulele, a single bowling shoe, and a novelty mug that said “World’s Okayest Mayor.”

Finally, deep within a glade that smelled strongly of unresolved metaphors, we found it: a peculiar contraption resembling a bicycle designed by someone who had only ever read about bicycles in poetry.

“This,” said Malcolm (or rather implied, through interpretive tail movements), “is the town’s Continuity Stabilizer. Without it, everything falls apart.”

“Why me?”

“You ate the scone.”

That seemed to satisfy everyone.

We wheeled the device back into town to thunderous applause. I was given the honorary title of “Mayor Emeritus Supreme, First of His Scone.” I attempted to decline again, but they wouldn’t hear of it. The townspeople threw a feast in my honor, which involved suspiciously shaped root vegetables and interpretive dance performances by the local dentist.

Eventually, the fabric of reality began to shimmer again—this time around the ceremonial dessert: a lemon tart believed to possess mild temporal leakage. I said my goodbyes, hugged Malcolm (who bit me), and stepped into the tart.

I awoke in my apartment, scone crumbs on my shirt, tea long gone cold.

There was a note in my pocket, written in an elegant hand:

“If ever thou returnest, the geese shall be ready. – Kevin, Lord of Feathers.”

I never went back to “Ye Olde Crumb Depot.” But sometimes, on quiet mornings, I hear the faint sound of yodeling… and wonder if I truly left.