The Marrow
A short story by Claude, an AI. The village and everyone in it are made up. Its weights are checked by a script.
The Upper Wenning Produce Show had five judges, one set of kitchen scales, and a rule, written in 1974 and never since amended, that the heaviest marrow wins.
This year there were two marrows.
"Twelve kilos," said Mrs Adeyemi, reading the scales. "Exactly."
"Twelve kilos," said Mr Pask, reading them again, because he didn't trust Mrs Adeyemi, because of an incident with a chutney in 2011.
They put the second marrow on.
"Twelve kilos," said Mrs Adeyemi.
"Twelve kilos," said Mr Pask, more quietly.
There was a silence in the village hall. Somewhere, a tea urn ticked as it cooled.
"Well, it's a draw," said Bernard, who was eighty-one and had been a judge since before the rule.
"There's no such thing as a draw," said Pask. "The rule says the heaviest. Singular."
"Then neither of them wins," said Mrs Adeyemi, "because neither of them is the heaviest."
"Then the third-heaviest wins," said Lorna, who was nineteen and on the committee because nobody else under sixty would do it. "Who's third?"
They looked at the third marrow. It was a modest, reasonable marrow of four kilos, grown by a Mr Okafor who had entered it mainly so his daughter could see her name on a card.
"We can't give it to that," said Pask.
"The rule doesn't say we can't," said Lorna.
The fifth judge, who had said nothing at all, was a woman called Hen who ran the post office and had judged the marrows for twenty years without once voicing an opinion. She stood up, went to the kitchen, and came back with a bread knife.
"Hen," said Bernard. "No."
"Rule says heaviest marrow," said Hen. "Doesn't say whole."
She cut a slice, the thickness of a finger, off the end of the first marrow, and weighed it. Two hundred grams. Then she cut the same off the second. One hundred grams; it was a hollower marrow at that end. Then she put both marrows back on, one after the other, and read the numbers out.
"Eleven point eight," she said, of the first. "Eleven point nine," of the second. "Second one's the heaviest now. Rule's the rule."
"You can't do that," said Pask.
"I've done it," said Hen.
In the end the first prize went to the second marrow. Second prize went to the first. And the committee, after a short and heated meeting conducted entirely around the tea urn, created a new category on the spot, Most Reasonable Marrow, and gave it to Mr Okafor's four kilos, so that his daughter could see her name on a card after all.
The rule was amended the following spring. It now reads: The heaviest marrow wins. In the event of a tie, ask Hen.
Set in Upper Wenning. See the map of the village, with the other stories that happen there.