Thursday 7 January 2016

The President

This is quite a sweary story. You've been warned. 
This is fiction and any similarity to any persons living or dead is 'purely' coincidental. 
For audio click here
“Those fucking hipsters,” the President yelled, “fucking intellectual wannabes. Sitting around all day, drinking coffee. Who do they think they are?”
He threw down the offending newspaper on the table and held his head in his hands. “Wankers,” he said. “They’re full of shit. If they think they can do better, why don’t they go into politics instead of just eating cake?”
His advisors looked on, wishing they hadn’t drawn his attention to the article about the Café Opposition; a group of dissidents that met in the coffee houses of the Café Quarter in the North East of the capital.  Jana, the Chief of Staff, and Petr, the Private Secretary, looked at each other and at the president. They knew his moods; they knew he’d blow himself out in due course.
“Who the hell baked this cake?” He pointed to the picture under the headline.
There was silence in the room.
“Who baked this cake?” the President repeated. He was met with blank stares.
“Find out, and arrest them. There must be something in these cakes that provokes this kind of dissidence.  In fact, arrest the baristas too; no cake, no coffee, no chance to turn molehills into mountains.”
‘How can we arrest them? What are the charges?” The President’s chief of staff asked.
“Use your imagination Jana. What’s the point of being President if I can’t have these wankers arrested?”

When the police walked into the café no one expect them to head to the kitchen. The poet, the TV producer and the lawyer looked up from their conversation and thought their time was up. The Russian, the Ukrainian and the Georgian started edging towards the door, knowing their papers were not in order. But the police weren’t interested in the usual suspects.  It was the pastry chef, the head barista and their assistants who were carted away. The poet sat back and breathed out. His sense of relief was soon replaced with frustration – who the hell was going to make his flat white?

“The country’s gone fucking mad!” The President screamed as he watched the demonstrations on the flat-screen TV in his office. “What the hell is wrong with people? We arrested a baker and a barista, not exactly national treasures.”
“I think, um, we are going to have to release them sir,” Jana said.
“Never!” the President didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “I want to speak to them?”
‘To who?” Petr asked.
“To the bloody baker, what’s her name? To find out what’s so special about her cakes.”
“I’m not sure we can do that,” Jana said.
“I’m the bloody President. I can do anything.” There was no answer to that.

“Why is you café the hotbed of dissent?” the President yelled at a bemused looking Layla. Never in her wildest dreams did she think her baking would lead to her being arrested and interrogated by the president of the country, no matter how mad he was.
“Butter,” Layla said.
“What?” he towered over the baker; his podgy knuckles resting on the table.
“Butter,” Layla repeated.
“Speak up woman,” the President’s jowls wobbled as he yelled.
“It’s well-known,” Layla said, only a touch louder, “that margarine consumption affects the analytic thinking in humans.”
“It does?”
“Yep, but in my cakes I only use butter. So I’m waking people up from their margarine induced comas.”
“Bullshit!” The president said.
Layla smiled.
“Are you being serious?”
Layla ignored the question.


The next day the President announced that the bakers and baristas would be released without charge. He also announced a presidential decree banning the use of butter in cakes.

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2 comments:

  1. pity i can't comment on this one as i am not the expert on cakes. let's wait for the expert's comment

    ReplyDelete
  2. Petra Goláňová9 January 2016 at 11:50

    “Yep, but in my cakes I only use butter. So I’m waking people up from their margarine induced comas.”

    ReplyDelete