Let Them Eat Cake

This is a fictional story, if you can’t tell. Since it’s below a thousand words, technically it can be considered flash fiction.

Featuring cameos from:

Cheese the cat

Joan

Charles

Yi Shu

Who are actually real and pretty much because I asked who wanted to cameo in this weird fic.

~~~

Let Them Eat Cake

by Seriously Sarah

An orange cat was sleeping on one of the tables. Cheese. That was the cat’s name, according to the numerous polaroids pinned on the noticeboard. It was probably a health hazard.

Joan wrote it down in her notebook.

She sat in the empty café. It was small and cozy with mismatched furniture and unpainted brick walls. There was a tricycle hanging from the ceiling and an entirely too expensive SMEG fridge near the entrance. Inside the fridge, mason jars filled with ice water with the tiniest slice of lemon.

“Water… self-service,” muttered Joan to herself as she read the paper sign stuck on it.

She noted it down in her notebook, stood up from her short wooden stool and headed towards the counter.

“Greetings, do you have rainbow cake?” asked Joan.

The staff, a young teenage boy, looked worriedly at Joan. She looked over at his badge, pinned on his black t-shirt. “Yi Shu, is that how you say your name? I would like a slice of rainbow cake,” demanded Joan.

“Yes. Y-es m’am. Miss! I mean, that’s how you pronounce it but er, we don’t have rainbow cake. May I suggest the pandan chiffon cake?” he said hopefully.

She frowned at him and slid her notebook into her handcrafted purse.

“I’m sorry, that won’t do,” she said gravely.

“Wait, let me call my manager, he’s at the back! Hold on, please!”

The boy ran towards the back quickly. Considering there was not much of a ‘back’ than a small kitchen and brought another man out. He was bespectacled with rather floppy hair and of a slight stature. Joan looked at him approvingly.

“Hello, I’m Charles, the owner. May I help you… Oh. Oh no,” he said, taking off his glasses.

“Hello Charles, I see you must know why I am here,” she said.

“Yi Shu, go into the kitchen,” ordered Charles.

The boy obediently escaped into the room, leaving the two of them in the main room of the café.

“I’ve heard of your kind,” he stated.

Joan smirked and placed a namecard on the countertop.

“Good, then you know I’m one of them. Your café failed the test. Your cat gave you a few points. Your décor is passable but your menu is rubbish,” she flippantly said.

She turned around, took a step away from him and paused.

“You can either close within a month or follow my instructions,” she said.

Charles narrowed his eyes at her. He looked down at the namecard.

“What do I have to do?” he asked.

She looked over her shoulder and smirked.

“You know what to do. Change your menu. Master the eggs benedict and bread toasting, stock up on coffee beans, not that rubbish you have right now. And most importantly… Stock up on rainbow cakes,” she said seriously.

He held the namecard up.

“One day someone will stand up to you. Ministry of hipsters. More like hipster gangsters… ” he commented.

Joan stood by the sleeping cat and petted it.

“We have our requirements, like any other organization. You have a hipster café. Follow our guideless or prepare to close,” she said lightly and strode out of the café.

Yi Shu crept back into the main room once he heard her leave.

“What will we do, boss?” he asked.

“We need to get more obscure,” said Charles.