Schrodinger’s Cake

La Mort par Le Chocolat, the clandestine bakery and chocolatier hidden somewhere amongst the mountains and forests outside of Seattle, Washington had a multi-year waiting list just for an opportunity to walk in the door. And that list was comprised only of those fortunate enough to have been referred by another customer. Worse still, being granted entry did not guarantee that you’d walk out with even a nostrilful of the shop’s sickly-sweet confections. In fact, the vast majority of those that entered the tiny edifice left empty-handed. Of course, this only served to further La Mort par Le Chocolat’s perplexing mythos and stratospheric demand.

Owned and operated by a shrewd, aging Frenchwoman called Mallory -- which roughly translates to “unlucky” or “unhappy” -- the petite pâtisserie didn’t even have a proper menu. Rather, its warden would suss out any prospective customer’s perfect order with little more than an up-and-down glance. And if you didn’t like it, too bad. To the uninitiated, especially those that had been turned away, the flabbergasting process seemed arbitrary, flippant, and even grotesque. But everyone fortuitous enough to so much as sample Mallory’s selection would confirm vigorously that the crone’s judgment was never wrong. Not even once.

I do not know who it was that referred me. By all accounts, they should not have. While I enjoyed the very occasional indulgence of a chocolate chip cookie or, on even rarer occasions, a plain glazed donut, sweets typically did not lure me into action. I did not post carefully positioned, heavily edited images of my meals on social media, nor had I ever self-identified as a “foodie” or “culinary tourist.” Yet the invitation arrived all the same.

It was actually the invitation itself that caused me to investigate further. But, apart from the wee bits of information I had gleaned online, La Mort par Le Chocolat remained shrouded in mystery. Perhaps that was why I was chosen, as I could never pass up the draw of a good stumper. But it seems likelier that my undisclosed benefactor was aware of my ongoing struggles with decision-making.

#

It was no big secret amongst my friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, and even my most casual acquaintances that I was paralyzed with fear at the mere prospect of having to make the simplest of choices, especially when they deviated ever-so-slightly from my plans. And especially especially if they caused so much as a minor inconvenience to anyone else. But this wasn’t always the case. The transition started slowly, without my noticing, and hid behind the guise of comfort and convenience.

It was comfortable and convenient to become a daily regular at the restaurant beneath my apartment. It was comfortable and convenient to take the same route to work every morning and back home every evening. It was comfortable and convenient to thumb through books and books of puzzles and brain-teasers instead of going out with friends and family. It was comfortable and convenient to stick to a rigid schedule and stay out of the way. It was comfortable and convenient to avoid deviating from those habits entirely.

And then it was daunting and terrifying to even think of doing anything differently. So I didn’t.

When I was in earshot, people described my unwavering commitment to homogeny and unobtrusiveness as “polite,” “reliable,” and “consistent.” But the intonation always sounded more like “spineless,” “subservient,” and “inflexible.” Still, I was content to fold into these patterns. It wasn’t until it was too late I realized I had become trapped in a prison of my own making. But self-made prisons can also be un-made, just as word scrambles can be unscrambled. So I sought help from a licensed therapist.

I don’t know how it came about and I certainly can’t prove it, but I assume Dr. Maguire had something to do with my receipt of that fated invitation. After all, the good doctor might have been the only person in my life that was aware of the unique, seemingly at-odds juxtaposition of my strict adherence to monotony and my great fondness for puzzling. And there had been suggestions of my getting out of my comfort zone. Maybe this was a not-so-subtle hint. Maybe I was grasping at straws.

In any case, it worked. I was intrigued enough to pursue tracking down the inscrutable La Mort par Le Chocolat, despite my mounting hesitations and uneasiness.

#

“Oui, oui. Come in,” the elderly woman ushered me in through the door of her tiny cabin. “Become comfortable. I will be with you in only a moment.”

Despite her welcome, I was still not sure I was in the right place. I followed the instructions per the invitation, but they were written more like clues on a pirate’s treasure map than genuine directions. And even then, the hand-written parchment contained only vague allusions to odd landmarks -- the feet of a fallen giant, for instance, turned out to be a massive tree stump standing atop a small hill. It seemed pertinent, considering my predicament, to speak up about it. So I did. “I’m sorry. I just want to make sure--”

Without slowing or turning around, the old crone raised a single index finger, silencing my stammering, “I do not care. I do not wish to hear. Become comfortable. Or leave. Nothing else matters.”

Unwilling (or perhaps unable) to push the matter any further, I politely obeyed, sitting in the plush armchair closest to the door. While the invitation and its instructions were presumably intentionally ambiguous, Mallory’s shop was still surprising to behold, both in its locale and in its own structure and styling. At the very least, it was not what I was expecting considering the journey it took to arrive here.

You see, once I arrived in Seattle, I had to rent a car and then drive out into the boonies of the surrounding mountains. From there, I followed the bizarre anecdotal directions, getting hopelessly lost and having to retrace my path several times along the way, until coming upon a dirt road blocked by a fallen tree -- which was, of course, also mentioned obscurely in said directions as nature’s obstruction.

Another two or three miles by foot along a serpentine dirt trail and I was spat out of the woods in front of what could best be described as a Grimm-esque Scandinavian cottage... which might as well have been made of candy for all its esoteric absurdity.

As I sat in that armchair, I wondered what such a frail old woman was doing out here so far from civilization and how, exactly, she had made a business out of it. Perhaps she was a witch and this was merely a muse to attract those that would not be missed, ripe for the feasting. Or maybe this was some kind of elaborate, ill-conceived prank to shake me out of my neuroses.

Yes, I thought. I’ve been had. That must be it. How else does one explain this bizarre fever dream? Shame I didn’t realize it before now.

Resigned to depart empty-handed and un-devoured, I rose from the plush armchair just as Mallory reentered the foyer, a small pink box in her hands and a scowl on her face.

“And where do you think you’re going,” it was more of a statement than a question. “You will sit until you hear what I have to say. Then you leave. Go wherever. I do not care.”

I didn’t sit back down, so much as fell into the chair from which I had just risen. Mallory scooted closer, her slippers dragging along the floor, and extended the box toward me.

“What is it?” I whispered, extending a hand to accept.

Mallory swatted my fingers away, “Listen, I said. Inside this box, you will find a single slice of chocolate cake. Or you will not. I do not care. You understand?”

I nodded. She placed the small pink box in my hands, whipped around, and scooted back out of the small foyer. And I did not see Mallory, owner-operator of La Mort par Le Chocolat, again.

At first, I wanted to chase her down, ask her what she meant, who had put her up to this. But then my curiosity began to wane, replaced by unbridled furor. If I had suspected mischief before, I was certain of deception now. I lept from the plush armchair and made my departure, slamming the door of the secluded cabin and making the march back to my rental car, bemoaning my bizarre circumstances all the while and allowing the rage to wash over me.

Who would subject me to such heinous treachery? This has gone too far; it’s much too much. I have lived a good, unobtrusive life. I stay out of people’s way and all I ask is that they stay out of mine. To think that someone would go to these lengths, and for what? To punish me? To make a fool out of me? What could I have possibly done to deserve this? I mind my own business. I avoid conflict. I apologize for getting in the way. I hold open doors. I step aside in hallways. I take up as little space as possible. I-- I barely even exist… at all.

There I sat, unraveled in the driver’s seat of a rented sub-compact car parked on a dirt road in front of a fallen tree with a small pink box from an impossible confectionery in my lap.

“I barely even exist at all,” I whispered to myself, looking down at what may or may not have been the single most hard-earned piece of chocolate cake I would ever have the chance to taste. All I had to do was decide. Decide what I wanted. It was at that moment that I made a choice. I would open the box.