Mek Ulson’s Birthday Party
A perfectly normal birthday party
In a spacious house with high ceilings and cold marble floors, Mr. and Mrs. Ulson were putting the final touches on their son Mek’s grand birthday party.
Mek, a boy straight out of a contemporary fairy tale, had it all: he was the most popular at his school, wore a T-shirt covered in emblems from all the top tech companies that everyone recognized, and from his waist hung a Louis Vuitton fanny pack that shone like a jewel.
Mek’s class was unusually large, but he, being generous, had invited all his classmates. One hundred children, not one less.
On a huge central table rested the cake: rectangular, overflowing, juicy and tempting in appearance. Already cut into ten generous portions, it was a cake worthy of the Ulson lineage.
The boys and girls, coming from all corners, all races, faiths and customs, arrived and crowded around the cake.
With radiant smiles, Mr. and Mrs. Ulson began the distribution ceremony.
The first, naturally, would be Mek.
Although he wasn’t hungry—he’d just eaten at home—he sat down with theatrical enthusiasm in front of the cake.
His parents served him the first slice, which he devoured immediately. And then the second. And the third. Each piece he gulped down with the same eagerness, even without hunger, with solemn conviction: after all, it was his birthday.
The applause and cheers didn’t take long: some kids asked for selfies, others enthusiastically celebrated each bite Mek swallowed. Some just watched in silence and others, furtively, with suspicion.
Neither the camera flashes nor the applause interrupted his pace: one after another, he devoured five of the ten slices. In the end, with cream smeared on his mouth and sticky fingers, he wiped his triumphant smile with his embroidered napkin.
Then it was the others’ turn.
Forty-nine children, neatly dressed, polite and meticulous, lined up in impeccable order. Ironed shirts, polished shoes, respectful looks.
Mr. Ulson, a man known for his rigorous sense of fairness, didn’t hesitate.
With almost surgical precision, he took the remaining five slices and cut each into ten exact pieces. That way, each child would receive a precise tenth of a portion; no more, no less.
It was meticulous work, but Mr. Ulson spared no effort: to him, justice was sacred.
Each child received their small piece with silent gratitude.
There were just a few mishaps: a boy, seeing the size of his piece, burst into tears.
Mrs. Ulson, with practiced tenderness, bent down and whispered in his ear:
—I know it seems little, love, but this is exactly what you deserve.
Another child, a bit clumsy, dropped his tiny piece on the floor.
Mr. Ulson, without raising his voice but firmly, explained:
—You should have been more careful. Now you’ve lost what was yours. Next time, be more responsible.
The ceremony continued without major incidents. Each child, with their tenth of a slice in hand, withdrew orderly to their place, amid a murmur that was a mix of satisfaction and learned resignation.
Then there remained only a small fragment: one-tenth of a slice of cake.
And before it, fifty children were waiting.
The scene turned harsh. Many of those children had not eaten the previous day and, throughout the party, had stayed on the margins, eyeing the cake with an anxiety they could barely hide.
Now, faced with imminent distribution, some argued, others openly scuffled and more than a few fought to advance in the line a little, trying to get closer to the cake.
Mek, from his seat of honor, watched the scene with visible discomfort: barefoot children, ragged, dirty, shouting amid the shoving.
He then remembered his father’s words, repeated a thousand times at the family table:
—"They’re savages, they don’t know how to behave."
Mrs. Ulson, seeing the spectacle, turned pale.
She put a hand to her chest and, citing a sudden ailment, retired to her room to rest.
Mr. Ulson, visibly displeased but meticulously just and fair, went to the kitchen.
He returned minutes later with a special instrument: a subatomic precision laser knife.
With a steady hand and a surgeon’s precision, he cut that tenth of a cake into fifty microscopic fragments.
With a magnifying glass fitted to his right eye and a watchmaker’s tweezer in hand, he solemnly placed a tiny particle of cake in the open mouth of each of the fifty remaining children.
The party ended quickly.
The children returned to their homes and their lives.
That night, everyone slept as usual, after a perfectly normal birthday party.