A Jaunty Tune and 83% More Accidents

By the time Yorn attended his fourth town meeting, he had learned an important lesson about Mayor Llama.

The mayor genuinely cared.

This was what made him dangerous.

If Mayor Llama had been selfish, lazy, or openly incompetent, people might have resisted him more effectively. They might have laughed him down, tabled his stranger proposals, or at the very least buried them under the sort of dull procedural sludge that protected communities from innovation with too much personality.

But Mayor Llama was sincere.

He loved Snowdrift Bay.
He loved its people.
He loved town improvement, civic fellowship, ribbon cuttings, pilot programs, and any sentence that allowed him to say “forward-thinking.”
And because his heart was almost always in the right place, the town had developed a deeply unfortunate habit of following him into nonsense as though it were a parade route.

Yorn knew this now.

He had seen enough.

He had watched a drainage meeting become an impromptu lantern festival.
He had survived an ordinance regarding “decorative seasonal horns,” which somehow resulted in Barnaby Blackbeard receiving an official warning for “hostile fog signaling.”
He had once arrived late to a discussion on sidewalk repair and discovered the historic district was now trialing “courtesy stilts” in areas of high pedestrian congestion.

So when the agenda for the evening listed Parking Concerns in Cobblestone Square, Yorn made the specific and tragic mistake of feeling hopeful.

Town Hall was already packed when he arrived.

The chamber held the usual mixed crowd of the civic-minded, the habitually aggrieved, and the deeply bored who nevertheless enjoyed a spectacle. Shopkeepers clustered in little islands of tension. Vendors compared notes in urgent whispers. A few ghosts hovered politely near the back wall. Spike was there, somehow sitting despite being a cactus. Fabian Flamingo occupied a chair near the aisle with the air of a man prepared to deliver one sharp, elegant objection after another until someone sensible prevailed. A florist Yorn recognized had brought a notebook labeled THINGS I REFUSE TO NORMALIZE.

Yorn folded himself into a wooden chair near the rear with the practiced caution of a very large man who had once broken one at a fisheries committee meeting simply by attempting to sit like he belonged there.

The room quieted as the stage curtains parted.

Mayor Llama emerged from behind them with the glowing confidence of a man arriving at an awards ceremony he had also organized.

He was wearing the formal sash.

Not the ordinary mayoral sash. The embroidered one. The one with the gold trim and the little silver tassels that implied the issue under discussion was about to be elevated into pageantry whether anyone consented or not.

“Citizens of Snowdrift Bay,” he began, warm and resonant, “thank you once again for gathering in the spirit of civic responsibility.”

There was applause.

Yorn did not clap.

The mayor continued.

“We meet tonight not merely as residents, taxpayers, merchants, drivers, and occasional ordinance violators—”

Spike raised a hand. “Feels targeted.”

“—but as caretakers,” Mayor Llama said, flowing right past him, “of a town unlike any other.”

More applause.

Yorn looked down at the agenda in his lap as if it might still protect them.

For a while, the meeting remained reasonable. Suspiciously reasonable.

A dockworker raised concerns about mysterious crates labeled BEEF AU JUS showing up at the harbor without corresponding paperwork. The librarian requested funds for rare-book humidity control after an unpleasant incident involving sentient vellum. A woman from Quirky Corner demanded intervention in “the whistling alley,” which Mayor Llama promised to revisit once the acoustics subcommittee finished its report.

Then they reached parking.

A change passed through the room at once.

People shifted.
Sat up straighter.
Crossed their arms.
Muttered.

This one mattered.

Cobblestone Square parking had become a townwide irritation. On market days it was a battlefield. Delivery wagons blocked compact cars. Visitors parked diagonally with the confidence of people who had never loved anything but themselves. Shopkeepers simmered. Vendors treated prime spaces like hereditary rights. By noon the square became a slow-turning carousel of resentment, horn taps, and people trying to pretend they absolutely had not just cut someone off.

Several residents spoke before Yorn did.

The baker wanted timed vendor zones.
The butcher wanted delivery permits.
A woman from the apothecary demanded clearer signage and “consequences with teeth.”
Then Fabian rose, one wing braced lightly against the back of the chair in front of him, and said in a tone so controlled it was almost lethal:

“I am no longer willing to spend twenty-three minutes of my life every Tuesday crawling the square in a decorative rage because three men in pickup trucks believe yellow curbs are merely a suggestion.”

That got real applause.

At last Yorn stood.

He did not enjoy speaking at town meetings. Town meetings in Snowdrift Bay had a tendency to become porous in ways that made ordinary logic leak out.

Still, someone needed to say the obvious thing before Mayor Llama said something else.

“Mayor,” Yorn said, his voice carrying easily across the room, “the square needs a practical solution. Marked spaces. Better time limits. Permit zones for vendors on market days. Something people can understand and follow.”

Heads nodded immediately.

Encouraged, he continued.

“Right now everyone’s frustrated because nobody knows what the rules really are. It’s crowded, it’s inefficient, and on market days the whole place becomes an argument with wheels.”

Mayor Llama listened with his chin slightly raised and his eyes narrowed in thought.

This should have been reassuring.

Instead, Yorn felt dread.

Because he had come to recognize a certain expression in the mayor’s face: that bright, inward-turning gleam that meant an idea had just arrived and was now dressing itself in civic language.

Yorn saw it happen.

And thought, with immediate despair, no.

Mayor Llama straightened.

Then he smiled.

Not a normal smile.
A visionary smile.
The smile of a man who had just mistaken a public complaint for an invitation to invent ritual.

“Yorn,” he said warmly, “you are absolutely right.”

A ripple of relief moved through the room.

Too soon, Yorn thought.

Much too soon.

Mayor Llama stepped out from behind the podium. He always did this when things had crossed from discussion into presentation.

“The problem,” he said, pacing slowly, “is not simply parking.”

Fabian closed his eyes.

“It is rhythm.”

Yorn’s shoulders sagged.

Mayor Llama lifted one hoof and turned to the room.

“What is a town square,” he asked, “if not a civic dance?”

Silence.

“And what,” he continued, voice building, “is parking if not choreography with consequences?”

Spike whispered, “Damn, he’s hot when he’s wrong.”

Fabian, without opening his eyes, said, “I need everyone to be more ashamed.”

Mayor Llama swept both hooves outward.

“We have tried stillness. We have tried painted lines, posted notices, and citizen goodwill. Yet congestion remains! Prime spaces are monopolized! Tempers fray! The square stagnates!”

“The square doesn’t stagnate,” muttered the butcher. “It fills up.”

Mayor Llama ignored him with the confidence of a man who only heard opposition as texture.

“So,” he declared, “I propose an ordinance both equitable and invigorating.”

The room went still.

Yorn felt the exact sensation of hearing ice crack beneath his feet.

Mayor Llama beamed.

“Beginning next month, parking in Cobblestone Square shall operate under a rotational musical system.”

Silence.

Nobody moved.

Yorn waited for the explanation that would make this less horrifying.

It did not come.

Instead Mayor Llama pressed forward with growing delight.

“At the top of every hour, music shall be played throughout the square. During the tune, all vehicles parked in the square must vacate their current position and relocate to a different available space. In this way, no one may monopolize a desirable spot, traffic flow will remain dynamic, and the daily life of the town will be enriched by a spirit of cheerful participation.”

One clap sounded from somewhere near the middle.

Then another.

Then Spike, who had no business encouraging any of this, started applauding in earnest.

“Oh, this is excellent,” he said.

Fabian was on his feet instantly. “No.”

Mayor Llama pointed at him. “Yes! Exactly! It will be, in essence, musical chairs for transportation.”

“That phrase should have died in your throat,” Fabian said.

Now the room was breaking into excited chatter.

“What kind of music?”
“Would wagons be included?”
“What if someone’s in the haberdashery?”
“Can horses understand jurisdiction?”
“This might really keep things fair.”
“No, it won’t,” Fabian said. “It will keep things moving. Into each other.”

Yorn remained standing.

“Mayor,” he said, trying once more, “forcing everyone to move at once will make the problem worse.”

Mayor Llama looked at him with deep, patient kindness.

“Initially, perhaps.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“But only because innovation is often mistaken for inconvenience in its early life.”

“If I’m parked and the music starts while I’m in a shop, what happens?”

Mayor Llama answered immediately.

“Then,” he said, “you must move with purpose.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is a civic expectation.”

A man near the back called, “How long is the song?”

Mayor Llama lit up. “Excellent question. We are currently considering one minute and forty-five seconds.”

The room erupted again.

“One minute forty-five?!”
“That’s absurd.”
“That’s not enough time.”
“That’s too much time.”
“I’ll die in a cheese shop.”

Fabian sat down very slowly and placed one wing over his face. “This is not governance,” he said to the ceiling. “This is cabaret with municipal authority.”

The vote passed twenty-three minutes later because the room got distracted arguing about what the official tune should be.

Mayor Llama wanted something “jaunty but dignified.”
Spike requested surf guitar.
A retired violin teacher insisted on a waltz tempo because “panic should never be rushed.”
Someone from the harbor recommended drums “for accountability.”
One man proposed bagpipes and was asked to leave.

Yorn voted no.

So did Fabian, the butcher, the apothecary owner, and a visibly shaken widow from Maple Lane who kept muttering, “I fought too hard for adulthood to live like this.”

It did not matter.

The ordinance passed.

And because Snowdrift Bay never met a bad idea it couldn’t implement at speed, preparation began almost immediately.

Within two weeks, signs had gone up all around Cobblestone Square:

ROTATIONAL PARKING ZONE
WHEN THE MUSIC PLAYS, THE MOVEMENT BEGINS
FAILURE TO RELOCATE MAY RESULT IN CITATION, TOWING, OR PUBLIC DISAPPOINTMENT

Small brass speakers were mounted to the lamp posts. Fresh paint appeared on the cobblestones in looping cheerful arrows that made the entire square look less like a parking area and more like the floor plan for a deeply cursed children’s game.

On the first day of enforcement, half the town turned out just to watch.

Yorn had errands to run and a strong suspicion that avoiding the square would only result in the square happening to him later, so he went.

The place looked normal at first.

Cars parked.
Wagons idled.
A produce van blocked part of an alley with the casual arrogance of commerce.
People browsed market stalls.
A horse outside the grocer stood tied to a post with the serene detachment of an animal too wise to involve itself in policy.

Mayor Llama himself was present, clipboard in hoof, sash immaculate, radiating the delight of a man about to launch a civic experiment that would definitely become someone else’s insurance issue.

Fabian stood across the square in sunglasses despite the weather, arms folded, already looking like a man collecting future grievances.

The clock tower struck the hour.

Then the music began.

It was atrocious.

Not badly composed, exactly. Worse than that. Cheerful. Bright. Brassy. A peppy, bouncing little tune with woodwinds and a parade tempo, as if someone had asked, “What if panic, but festive?” It flooded the square with aggressive optimism.

For one stunned second, nothing happened.

Then everyone remembered the law.

Chaos detonated.

Drivers burst from shops clutching purchases and swearing with communal urgency. Doors flew open. Engines sputtered to life. A woman dropped a bag of apples and abandoned them immediately. Two delivery wagons attempted to swap spaces at the same time and created an argument so geometrically stupid that four men began shouting directions no one could follow.

A man came tearing out of the bakery mid-scone, yelling, “IS IT THE HOUR ALREADY?”

“Yes!” screamed someone from a flower cart. “That’s why there’s music!”

The horse outside the grocer, apparently deciding that this was now a ritual it was expected to honor, started moving in a brisk, excited circle and dragged its little cart halfway across a painted arrow before anyone caught the reins.

Yorn stepped quickly onto the curb just as a tiny blue motorcar shot past him at a speed no one with that much terror should have been able to achieve.

Fabian stood in the center of the square with one wing pressed to his temple as vehicles lurched and repositioned around him.

“This,” he announced, while a wagon backed directly into a decorative barrel of winter greenery, “is what stupid looks like when given a soundtrack.”

A truck belonging to the fishmonger relocated two spots over and took out a bench.
A woman from the tailor’s shop re-parked beautifully, then realized she had moved into the very loading zone she had been yelling about at the meeting.
A tourist couple clutched a map between them and turned in a full circle like people who had accidentally wandered into local folklore.

And through it all, the music kept going.

One minute and forty-five seconds had never been so long.

Or so short.

By the time the tune finally ended, the square had somehow acquired a completely new arrangement of vehicles while also becoming less functional than before. One cart sat diagonally across two spaces and a lane. A van had ended up facing the wrong direction. Three delivery men were shouting at one another while standing in a puddle of crushed turnips. The produce wagon horse looked energized in a way no horse should ever look during infrastructure policy.

Mayor Llama, naturally, was ecstatic.

He stood near the fountain making notes on his clipboard with bright-eyed satisfaction.

Yorn turned to him in disbelief. “A wagon just hit a bench.”

Mayor Llama nodded. “Yes, but the turnover rate was excellent.”

“A car mounted the curb.”

“Temporarily.”

“A man left his driver-side door open and clipped a crate of beets.”

“Transitional friction.”

“Someone is crying.”

Mayor Llama peered toward the far side of the square where, indeed, a woman stood beside a bruised flower stand and wept openly.

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “but she may have been doing that already.”

The worst part was that it didn’t stop.

Every hour, on the hour, the tune played again.

And each time the square became a fresh pageant of hurried relocation, honking confusion, and preventable impact.

People began timing errands around the song.
Shopkeepers started posting little warnings in their windows.
Children gathered specifically to watch adults panic.
One café introduced Rotation Hour Specials for citizens stranded mid-relocation.
The horse from the first day began moving before the music even started, as though anticipating its cue.

Minor accidents went up.
Arguments went up.
The number of drivers quietly saying, “I hate this town,” while still participating somehow also went up.

Three weeks into the ordinance, the mayor held a press moment in the square to celebrate “early indicators.”

Yorn attended because the Gazette had sent him to cover it, which felt less like journalism and more like punishment by assignment.

Mayor Llama stood at the podium in front of a hand-painted sign reading:

ROTATIONAL PARKING: A MOVEMENT SUCCESS

Fabian was there too, purely out of spite.

The mayor shuffled his papers and smiled broadly at the assembled crowd.

“I’m proud to report,” he announced, “that since implementation, Cobblestone Square has seen a dramatic increase in parking turnover, significantly elevated citizen participation, and”—here he lifted the page with unmistakable delight—“an eighty-three percent increase in minor accidents.”

A hush fell.

Yorn blinked.

Fabian lowered his sunglasses.

The mayor beamed.

“Which,” he said, raising one hoof before anyone could object, “demonstrates with remarkable clarity just how fully engaged our residents have become with the system.”

There was silence.

Then Fabian said, very distinctly, “You are celebrating collisions.”

Mayor Llama turned toward him with the patient warmth of a man explaining stars to a child.

“No, Fabian. I am celebrating adaptation.”

“A bench was struck twice in one afternoon.”

“Repeated use is a sign of civic vitality.”

“The tailor reversed into the same cart on three separate days.”

“She’s committed.”

Yorn, notebook in hand, stared at the page in front of him.

“You can’t possibly think eighty-three percent more accidents is good.”

Mayor Llama smiled at him.

“Not accidents,” he said. “Feedback.”

Fabian made a strangled noise Yorn would later describe in print only as an elegant collapse of faith.

The insane part—the truly exhausting part—was that the town mostly loved it.

Not everyone, obviously. Fabian hated it with high style and total commitment. Yorn hated it more quietly but with increasing depth. The butcher still referred to it as “that stupid song law.” But enough people found it charming, ridiculous, and “very Snowdrift Bay” that genuine opposition never managed to organize into anything useful.

The local station even began broadcasting the tune on market mornings “to help people prepare emotionally.”

One music teacher arranged it for children’s recorder ensemble.

The square adapted the way Snowdrift Bay always adapted: not by fixing what was broken, but by incorporating it into the local atmosphere until resisting it felt vaguely antisocial.

One evening, after narrowly avoiding being backed over by a produce van relocating under the second chorus, Yorn stood at the edge of the square and watched the aftermath of another rotation.

Beside him, Mayor Llama admired the scene like an artist evaluating bold public work.

The last notes of the tune drifted off into the cold air. A wagon failed to make a turn and took out a decorative snowman. Someone shouted, “That was my best space!” from inside the haberdashery. A pair of teenagers applauded for reasons known only to them.

“You still disapprove,” the mayor said.

Yorn looked at him. “Yes.”

Mayor Llama nodded.

“But,” he said, “you must admit it has character.”

Yorn watched a driver carefully, deliberately settle into the exact space he had vacated seventy seconds earlier.

“I admit,” he said, “that it has consequences.”

Mayor Llama smiled.

“In Snowdrift Bay,” he said, “those are often the same thing.”

Yorn exhaled through his nose.

That was the problem.

Mayor Llama was not wrong in the way normal mayors were wrong.

He was wrong sincerely. Communally. With such warmth, conviction, and elaborate civic confidence that the town often followed him straight into catastrophe and applauded the view on the way down.

And standing there beside the square, while the horse began repositioning itself preemptively for the next hour and Fabian could be heard in the distance arguing with a parking sign like it had betrayed him personally, Yorn found himself laughing.

Not because the ordinance was good.

It was terrible.

Not because it had solved anything.

It had not.

But because Snowdrift Bay had once again taken a perfectly ordinary problem and, under Mayor Llama’s lovingly ridiculous guidance, transformed it into a public ritual of unnecessary complexity, musical panic, and measurable collision.

Which was, increasingly, the most local thing imaginable.