Subject: The Bun Question (cont.)
Page 2 was released after a review lasting twelve years. Redaction density has been increased in accordance with Order 1850-NB-0717 (amended). This is what transparency looks like.
Pages 3 Through 8
Pages 3 through 8 are not sealed. They are missing.
The Bureau's final inventory, dated 30 June 1971, lists them as "on loan." The borrower signed for them in pencil. The signature reads the Earl of Sandwich (estate). No return date was given. None was requested. Nobody has asked since.
Readers are advised not to ask either.
Field Observation, Undated
At 0640 hours an operative entered a bakery in a city of moderate size to purchase rye bread. The operative was offered a bag of six dinner rolls instead. The operative declined. The baker smiled. The rolls were warm.
The operative left with the rye bread and has not been the same since. Nobody is the same after the smell. See Reason 09.
The remainder of this observation is withheld in the interest of lunch.
Approved Countermeasures
- Ask for it open-faced. Hold eye contact until it arrives.
- If the top half arrives anyway, remove it. Place it to one side. Do not explain.
- If offered "sliders," decline the plural. Then decline the singular.
- Do not engage with the sesame field. It is engaging with you.
- In the event of a hot cross bun, do not think of the song. You are thinking of the song.
- In Norway, request lompe. It has never let anyone down.
Correspondence (Excerpt)
"Ruled out" is final. The croissant has been ruled out. Do not raise the croissant again. The shape is a crescent, which is not a circle, which is the whole point.
— D.
Archival Finding
The Bureau has examined the 1801 census for Surnadal, Mo local parish. The census lists every household: farmers, cottars, servants, children, their ages and their trades.
It lists no buns. Not one. Not on any farm. Not under any heading.
It will be objected that a census counts people, not bread. The Bureau notes that the enumerators had every opportunity.
Source: 1801 census for 1566P Surnadal, Digitalarkivet source 58431 (AV/RA-EA-4070).
The Word
"Bun" comes from Middle English bunne, a wheat cake. Before that, Anglo-Norman bugne: a bump on the head. Before that, a Frankish word for a little clump. At the bottom of it all, a root meaning thick, dense, fat.
The word means lump. It has always meant lump. Nobody was told.
The French kept the same word for the beignet, a fritter. The croissant was not consulted and is not implicated.
Source: Wiktionary, "bun", Etymology 1.
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