The breakfast buffet on the mezzanine level of a mid-range hotel has established itself as a sovereign entity, with a border, a currency, and a scheduled collapse.

Entry requires a room number, spoken aloud to a host who does not write it down and will never verify it.

Inside, guests obey rules nobody has explained. Plates are small. Portions are therefore many. A guest may return to the buffet without limit, provided each return is performed with the expression of someone who has forgotten something.

“The small plate is not a restriction. It is a permit,” said Dr. Halvor Espen of the Institute for Continental Arrangements. “It authorises repetition.”

The pastries are included, which guests experience as a windfall demanding immediate exploitation. Institute figures put average consumption at 240 per cent of a normal breakfast, described afterwards by the consumer as “a bit much.”

The state collapses at 10 a.m. There is no announcement. A staff member appears carrying a tray, and guests sense it the way animals sense weather.

At 9:58, one visitor took four croissants. He did not want four croissants. He wanted not to be the kind of person who was caught out.