Ironic Cupcakes: A Fairy Tale

Yarmond was growing weary of his self-imposed mission, which required many tedious door-to-door interactions while carrying an increasingly cumbersome sack. He was entering the Village of Pattadonna Hill, a sprawling series of uniformly cylindrical cottages with large doors made of chestnut planks and polished brass bolts. It was a prosperous town full of attractive people and vibrant landscape; even the clouds that passed overhead appeared to be sculpted by someone selected through a formal process that involved auditions and stodgy interviews.

The first cottage he visited was eclectic indeed, with statues of feathered beasts indigenous to faraway lands, folky crafts of coloured straw, and water fixtures that require far more than gravity and capillary effects to function. He taps at the door and waits patiently, his eyes lose focus around the brass bolts as he is wading through thoughts far, far away from the improvised yet somehow rehearsed tales he intends to tell. The patriarch of the Narrowmiller family opens the door and Yarmonds words are dripping with presumptions, as these conversations have become so perfunctory and rote that he can almost respond on their behalf. To enter their comfort zone as a stranger who has lost his way, he flatters and describes his first hand experience with the subject matter of their lavish exotic decor during his travels.

There is a reason these compliments of excess are being used. The rulers of this realm, the corrupt and bureaucratic Society of Wizard Overlords, noticed a lack of productivity and sincere motivation among the masses. Due to their relative lack of individual power and freedom, it seems they had given up on the traditional ambitions that the ruling class of wizards benefit from, so people began to keep modest personal goals and spend more time developing a bitter sense of humor to cope with the unbearably harsh realities of being ruled by wizards who, despite being very powerful and wise were prone to scandal. Rather than try to improve their behavior so people would become less jaded, the Society of Wizard Overlords passed a blanket spell that causes anybody who enjoyed an incident of irony to have their household transformed into gourmet cupcakes that feature characteristics that identified them. For instance somebody who was shallow but happy would probably have overly sweetened icing with rainbow sprinkles and extra spongy cake, someone who was prone to holding grudges would have stale icing and bitter fruit filling, someone who was indecisive would be made of marble cake and have one piece of several candy toppings, etc. The wizards found that the citizens were worth more as gourmet cupcakes than as lazy disillusioned workers. Since laughing ironically at failure and hopelessness was no longer an option, people were forced to take life very seriously and put all of their effort into being successful, as success was the only means to happiness.

Having been invited into the Narrowmiller's home for refreshments, Yarmond is asking questions of the young couple that give them the opportunity to express their sincere beliefs on broad social issues and show off their worldly knowledge. After a while he asks them if they want to see a trick. They oblige him, given of course that no irony is involved. Yarmond says it is as straightforward a trick as they have ever seen... and he continues the conversation speaking entirely in titles of books that can be found on the Narrowmiller's shelves. Having been entertained in many similar homes, his choices are flawless. Each sentence is seamless and free flowing; it is as though no matter what question they can think of to ask of him, he can form a response using only titles of various publications found throughout the house. The conversation lasts for hours, until they nearly forget that all he needed were some directions to the best lodging in the area. Eventually he begins his departure pleasantries, and then he asks, "I forget, what were your names?" After an awkward pause, the husband started to speak his name... but the wife interrupts, "Wait... you know every book in our house... but you don't know our names?" At that moment, both were transformed into nearly identical cupcakes. They were made with red velvet cake and had lumps of toffee too large to be melted in the baking process, and the vanilla icing was unable to maintain its intended decorative formation due to all the toppings, which ranged from crumbled chocolates to pan-seared sea bass with capers. Yarmond wrapped them in separate napkins and tossed them into his sack and moved on to the next cottage.

After visiting a few homes, people start to warn others. Once the chain reaction begins, Yarmond's job becomes much easier. People begin arming themselves and dashing through the streets in a panic shouting "LOOK OUT! HE IS USING IRONY!" Then they think about what they are yelling while running around brandishing weapons, and relinquish a smile as they are changed into cupcakes. After the calamity, all Yarmond needs to do is retrieve them.

Of course even when they are an expression of an entire human life, a bag of cupcakes is not worth much to anybody. So why was Yarmond collecting them with such zeal? Not long ago Yarmond was in love with a woman named Miscellanea, and she was congruently in love with him. They spent their days nearly catatonic in amazement of every detail of one another... he of the way her hair felt between the insides of his fingers, her of his lower back and the corners of his eyes... her subtle ways of drawing attention to herself, his neurotic deconstruction of his surroundings... her vulnerability to him despite his flaws, his devotion to her despite all the worry he holds onto. Their state of reverie formed an impenetrable atmosphere, basically a new world outside of the jurisdiction of the Society of Wizard Overlords, who found this world to be threatening. Their world indeed had an actual physical presence, and Yarmond and Miscellanea entered and exited their world many times before they realized it was there. For Miscellanea this presence was a magical enhancement to her life, but for Yarmond it was a source of anxiety. What if it vanishes unexpectedly? What should they do to maintain it so that doesn't happen? What if Miscellanea betrays him? Miscellanea did all she could to reassure him that they were safe as long as the atmosphere was strong, but he was still doubtful and the wizards were aware of this. One day when he was outside of their atmosphere, a representative from the Society of Wizard Overlords wore the guise of a local merchant and invited Yarmond to his shop. After a few glasses of truth potion, masked with the flavor of a bitter local drink, Yarmond opened up about his feelings for Miscellanea, as well as his doubts. The shop was dimly lit and full of dusty lamps and pendants and some more confusing formations of sheet metal. The wizard let him know of a possible solution for his uncertainty. He reached behind him and presented a simple tarnished lantern. "Ignite this lantern with a lock of your lovers hair and speak her name into it. Then think deeply of everything that makes you love her, and when the flame burns out, everything you don't like about her will melt away." Yarmond purchased the lantern without hesitation and decided to use it the following morning.

Now, the Society of Wizard Overlords can't intervene in the lives of the people without an approved cause. They had to give Yarmond two options, and the immoral option, if chosen, justifies commensurate punishment. Yarmond collected a lock of Miscellanea's hair and spoke her name into the ignited lantern, and let his mind indulge in every one of her favorable qualities. After waiting patiently for the fire to burn out, he ran over to Miscellanea's home only to find a crowd had gathered and her roof was missing... along with her. Several passers by said there was a flash of light that projected up to the sky and outwards in all directions, and she was nowhere to be found. Yarmond located the merchant and asked what went wrong. The merchant removed his disguise and explained to Yarmond what he had done. "By using that lantern, you have deconstructed and separated all of Miscellanea's attributes and caused them to be scattered and distributed to every single person throughout the land." Yarmond begged of the wizard to break the spell. He replied, "Well even if I wanted to, I can't go against a decision made by the Society of Wizard Overlords. However, if you can find a way to bring everybody in the world into close proximity, the wizards will consider that deed a form of atonement and retrieve all of her features from the citizens and bring her back.

Yarmond went into hiding for a while and didn't resurface until the cupcake spell was passed, as he saw this as an opportunity: Since there was an element of her in every person in the world, and people were being turned into cupcakes... then the cupcake must contain this essence of her, as well. All he needed to do was make everybody turn into cupcakes, then they would be easy to keep all in one place and present to the wizards. Yarmond was immune to irony because he had lost all joy when Miscellanea vanished... so he could speak and perpetrate all the irony he wanted with complete invincibility.

Yarmond noticed that one of the eclectic cottages in Pattadonna Hill had a flattened pillar, most likely from Village of Blott, where phallic symbols of any kind are banned. This was the final village of his quest, and he soon found himself at the town center reading the engraved pancake-shaped monument to its founders. He was reading the town's slogan: "Hidden in the genius required by necessity are the building blocks of a better future." Nobody in Blott knew what it actually meant, but the words "genius" and "better future" were promising so it stuck. Yarmond knew only the crudest irony wouldn't be lost on these people, and since they wouldn't find any irony in acts of panic the way other towns have, he needed to get everybody in one shot. Fortunately he showed up the day of their monthly town hall meetings, the attendance of which was mandatory for at least one member of every household. The main purpose of these meetings is to debate over the many interpretations of the town slogan, as well as what defines something as phallic. The town has recently banned the usage of nails, so this month's meeting is about whether buildings must be demolished and reconstructed with the use of adhesives and fitted materials in favor of traditional elongated fasteners with an aspect ratio greater than 4:1. Yarmond slowly moved to the front of the room throughout the meeting, then during the open forum he took the podium and suggested that perhaps fasteners with a 4:1 aspect ratio would be acceptable if they were less than 2 inches in length. The suggestion received enthusiastic applause by most in the crowd, but there were several cries of disapproval around the room, the loudest of which was coming from the mayor. Yarmond seized this opportunity and yanked the mayor's pants and drawers down to his ankles, and the entire town turned into cupcakes. Mostly vanilla with bi-colored sprinkles and a plastic garnish.

Now holding the cupcake of every person in the land, Yarmond begins journeying to the Valley of Power find the Society of Wizard Overlords. When he arrived, the unseen wizards opened a portal to a new land where he and Miscellanea can start anew. All he had to do was listen to the wizard's explanation of why they put him through this trial. "We gave you the option to let your love take its natural course... but you chose to turn her into less than a person... you chose to strain out the qualities you found disagreeable. We found this to be unacceptable." Yarmond scratched his head. "Wait... so you're saying that in order to teach me about the value of human life... you made me turn the entire population of this realm into cupcake avatars of themselves?" Then, for the first time since he last saw Miscellanea's wide-eyed smile, Yarmond laughed. He was instantly transformed into a cupcake. After a few moments, Miscellanea materialized inside the bag of cupcakes. The voices of the wizards told her to enter the portal, and she stepped forward to oblige. All memory from her previous life had been wiped clean, but for some reason she wanted to eat the cupcake she found on the ground next to her before she left. It appeared to be chocolate caramel... She brought it up to her lips... and discovered it was made of stone. She tossed it aside and wandered into the new realm.