It was a well fed and prosperous kingdom, for in King Max's castle there was a magic oven. Each day at precisely 6 AM the oven door opened and exactly 1440 loaves of the most delicious bread imaginable slid onto a waiting tray. There was wheat bread, rye bread, pumpernickel, sourdough, and even an occasional loaf of onion bread. The oven did it all. Nothing was necessary except that the tray be wiped clean each morning and the door hinges oiled occasionally.
Of course, the prosperity of the Kingdom of Lyttle was very dependent on the magical oven. Without it there would have been little food, for the Foxglove Mountains are particularly steep and unsuitable for growing crops. Most of the people of Lyttle earned their money by either slicing or packaging or distributing the bread. It was a simple but pleasant life.
Now, this was not the only kingdom with a magic oven. There were others. But this was one of the nicest and perhaps the best producing oven on the entire planet. No one was totally sure of the origin of the magic oven. Legend had it that the oven had been there since the Land was formed, a gift from the Great Mother. Certainly, it was there long before the first Byg colonists had arrived by ship from across the Great Ocean.
When the first Byg person arrived from the east, hundreds of years ago, the Lyttle people were awestruck and immediately proclaimed him King. King First the Byg, as he was known, declared himself exclusive owner of the oven and ordered that a castle be built around it to protect it. From that day, management of the oven and distribution of the loaves became the exclusive business of the King.
The King, of course, derived most of his income from selling the bread. He wasn't rich, but he was quite comfortable. The Lyttle people saw nothing wrong with this arrangement, for there was always enough bread left over to feed them and the King paid them adequately for their work slicing, packaging and distributing it. They not only were given their daily bread but they were able to use the money they earned to buy clothes, VCR's and other niceties. The Lyttle people were happy and felt the arrangement was very equitable.
Each succeeding King had cared for the oven and distributed the bread fairly and all had gone well. Well, that is, until during the reign of Maxxamillion III when the Royal Crumbiter, Sir Charles, started meddling with the oven.
Sir Charles was actually King Max's younger brother. Like Max, Sir Charles was one of the Byg people. Max had seen to it that Sir Charles got a good education. When he came home from college King Max put him in charge of the Accounting and Quality Control Division. It was an easy although somewhat monotonous job since there were always 1440 delicious loaves of bread every day.
Perhaps it was Sir Charles' Harvard degree in economics which precipitated the problem, although many historians have noted that it all began shortly after a vacation on the Island of Wallstreet. For whatever the reason, the Royal Crumbiter developed a burning curiosity to know how that oven worked. No one had ever even thought of tinkering with the oven before. It produced a steady flow of nourishing and tasty bread and that's all anyone had really cared to know.
One evening after the daily bread had been counted out and all the Lyttle people had gone home to sleep, the Crumbiter remained behind. Working quietly, he pried stones out of one side of the oven until he could see what was inside. He was astounded.
The oven was larger inside than it was outside, much larger. There were literally millions of loaves of bread inside. As near as Sir Charles could tell, there were two kinds of loaves, those which stayed in the oven permanently, and those which grew from the permanent loaves and dropped to the oven floor. The "mother" loaves were stacked in neat rows along the sides of the oven. Sir Charles could see that each mother loaf was in some stage of expanding to form a second loaf. When the new loaf was fully developed, it separated form the mother loaf, floated to the oven floor and slid quietly toward the door. The door was cleverly designed to open whenever 1440 loaves had accumulated behind it.
Curious, the Crumbiter tasted one of the mother loaves. It tasted exactly like fresh bread. This was trully amazing.
But what really astounded Sir Charles was the slowness of the growth process. Although he watched for several hours, he could detect no discernable growth in any of the loaves. Yet, on the average, one loaf of bread dropped to the floor somewhere in the oven each minute. The Crumbiter began to count the Mother loaves. It was a daunting task, but by counting the number of loaves on one portion of the wall and estimating the size of the oven, he concluded that there were at least 13 million mother loaves. Since the oven produced only 1440 loaves per day, Sir Charles calculated each loaf took 25 years to form and drop to the floor.
"This is absolutely incredible," mumbled Crumbiter as he carefully replaced the stones in the side of the oven. "I've simply got to tell King Max how this thing works."
The next day Sir Charles told the King what he had discovered. "That's very interesting," said Max, "but you really shouldn't tinker with the oven, and besides, what difference does it make how it works? The important thing is that it produces a steady flow of bread."
"Come on," snorted the Crumbiter, "don't you see, we can get rich form this thing, it's worth millions."
"What are you talking about?" said Max.
"Look, there are 13 million loaves of bread in that oven, right? It grows us a measly 1440 per day. That's an annual return of only 4% on your investment."
"What investment? The oven's been in the kingdom for hundreds of years. It runs on its own."
"Boy, it's too bad you didn't go to Harvard with me, you'd understand these things," groaned Crumbiter. "You've got to believe me, there are costs associated with maintaining large inventories."
"Well I do employ a maintenance man who cleans the trays and oils the hinges. But I still don't understand how we're going to get rich off this discovery of yours."
"Look, banks are paying at least 8%. So we'll cash out the inventory and invest the money in a good SandL. We'll bring in twice as much as we're getting now."
"But what about the Lyttle people who depend on the bread? They're not going to stand for that. They trust me. And besides, we can't dump that much bread on the market at one time, there's not that much demand and the bottom would fall out of the bread market," said Max, trying desperately to recall what little he had learned in Economics 101.
"That's easy," retorted the Crumbiter. "We'll liquidate the inventory over a fairly long period of time, say ten years. We won't glut the market, and the Lyttle people will love it."
"But why will they love it?" whined Max.
"Because we'll triple bread production. For every loaf that grows, we'll rig the oven so that at least two mother loaves drop along with it. Instead of getting one batch of 1440 loaves at 6 AM, we'll get a batch at 6AM, 2 PM and 10 PM too. We'll put on three shifts and pay bonuses for extra production. Everyone will get more to eat and have more to spend. Believe me, the Lyttle people will love it."
"But in ten years it will all be gone. Once we've sold off all the mother loaves, that's it. Then what?"
"Ten years is a long time," replied the Crumbiter. "We'll think of something by then."
And so it was done. Sir Charles rigged the oven the next night. Suddenly the bread production tripled. The King issued a press release explaining that the increased production was due to improved management and previously underestimated inventories. Just as Sir Charles had predicted, the Lyttle people loved it. It was a time of great prosperity. King Max built a golf course, a polo field, and a splendid opera house. The Lyttle Kingdom in the Foxglove Mountains grew and became a model community. Everything was perfect until the group known as Bread Forever showed up and started causing trouble.
Bread Forever came about because one of the Lyttle people, the King's maintenance man, otherwise known as The Man Who Wipes the Trays, became suspicious. One day, Trays, for that's what everyone called him, noticed that the side of the oven had obviously been tampered with. After a little checking, it became clear to Trays that someone had been tinkering with the oven. Following in Sir Charles' footsteps, Trays climbed into the oven late one night and discovered the horrible truth. By now, as near as Trays could tell, the oven had only a few years left before all the mother loaves were gone. The next morning he dutifully informed the Royal Crumbiter of his incredible discovery.
"You're fired, you snooping, ungrateful wretch!" screamed the Crumbiter. "I should have you thrown in jail for entering the Royal Oven without permission. No one has a right to go in there except me."
"So it's you," Trays guessed. "You've actually been stealing our bread all these years under the guise of increased production. And now it's nearly gone."
"It's our oven, our bread, and we'll do as we please with it," snapped Sir Charles. "You Lyttle people have no say in these matters. Besides, you can hardly call it stealing when all you Lyttle people helped eat it, package it and sell it. It's added production and we've all benefitted from it. If we're thieves, then you're accomplices. Now get out of this kingdom."
But Trays didn't leave. He stayed on in a dilapidated shack on the outskirts of the kingdom and told his story to whoever would listen. Most people jeered at him and ridiculed his absurd story. But after a while he developed a small and dedicated group of followers. They were a scruffy bunch of dissidents who didn't depend on the bread industry for a living, so, unlike the rest of the Lyttle people, they could afford to listen to Trays.
Trays claimed that if the oven's production wasn't cut back, it would eventually just quit. Worse yet, he calculated that by now, even if the oven was fixed, it would produce only 288 loaves per day instead of the 1440 it used to produce. And that came to a mere 7% of the 4320 per day it was now producing. Not one working person in the Kingdom of Lyttle could be found who would listen to Trays. After all, if they did what Trays wanted, the kingdom would be reduced to poverty.
The King and Sir Charles assured the workers that all was well and posted handbills everywhere warning the people of Lyttle that Trays was a dangerous heretic and that no one should pay any attention to his absurd ideas. In fact, they even started rumors that poor maintenance by Trays was the reason the oven's production had not been this high in the past. "We're being kind in not arresting him for dereliction of duty." Sir Charles told everyone.
The King posted a 24 hour guard on the oven to keep any curious workers from verifying Trays' story. "This was necessary," he said, "in order to prevent sabotage by any of those dangerous malcontents."
The King also appointed a Royal Commission, headed by none other than Sir Charles himself, to investigate the whole affair. The Royal Commission gave the oven a clean bill of health and concluded that any past production problems had indeed been due to "shoddy maintenance and failure to understand the true operating principles of the oven."
But none of the King's tactics stopped Trays. He continued to tell his story and as word of mysterious oven failures in neighboring kingdoms filtered, the movement slowly grew. They began to call themselves Bread Forever. They picketed the castle and got good press coverage.
One day as a mob of vocal protestors waved picket signs outside the castle, the King summoned the Royal Crumbiter. "You got me into this mess," he said. "These protestors are driving me nuts. The lady with the bullhorn is keeping me awake at night. What do we do now?"
"Easy," sneered Sir Charles. "Hold talks with them. Listen politely to their demands. Tell them we are concerned about the oven too and are carefully monitoring its performance. Set up study committees and schedule more meetings. Make it look like you really care. While all this is going on, assure all the bread workers that we are their real friends and these Bread Forever people are just a bunch of troublemakers. Meanwhile, it's business as usual."
The Crumbiter's plan was a great success. More years passed in endless discussions and meetings. Finally, disgusted by the lack of progress and bolstered by new members, Bread Forever became strong enough to demand a plebiscite. And it appeared likely that they would win.
Again the King called in Sir Charles. "OK Charles," he said, "what do we do now? This Bread Forever bunch looks like it has the upper hand. And if my calculations are correct, the oven has less than a year to go before it quits and we are exposed."
"The timing couldn't be better," chuckled Sir Charles. "Issue a press release saying we're reducing bread production to meet the completely unreasonable demands of Bread Forever. I'll cut the oven back to a sustainable output, that's probably no more than 140 loaves a day. Tell the workers they're all losing their jobs because of Bread Forever and that from now on Bread Forever is in charge. Tell them that we just can't do business here any more and are pulling out for good. I'll take care of the rest."
Sir Charles' strategy was perfect. A massive riot ensued. The unemployed and disgruntled bread workers attacked the Bread Forever people. During the melee a powerful explosion of unknown origin completely destroyed the magical oven. The workers were even more outraged and drove all the Bread Forever people from the country. Trays was arrested by the Royal Guards, charged with conspiracy, and thrown into the Royal Dungeon. By the time the fighting ended, nothing was left for anyone. It was literally the end of an era and of the Kingdom of Lyttle.
King Maxxamillion and Sir Charles watched it all from the safety and comfort of a castle tower. "Not bad," said the King. "What's next, Sir Charles?"
"Gather up the money, Max," replied the Crumbiter, "It's time to go. You know, I've heard of this little kingdom over in the Humbocino Mountains where there's a magical forest. It's been there for thousands of years. I figure with what we've made off the oven, our experience . . . well, who knows? And by the way, drop the Sir and just call me Charles from now on."
And so they did.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited