Fantastic Metropolis

I slipped into the bedroom for a shirt and the bread began singing a song about making a sourdough sponge.

“Yeast is in the air.
Bread is everywhere.”

I returned to the kitchen as the loaf finished its song. “I’m late for work,” I said, hoping it wouldn’t begin singing again.

“So what? Your job isn’t vital.”

Bread is right. I keyboard text for a company that publishes books on real estate tax law. I could die and nobody would notice.

I looked out the window to check the weather. Gray drizzle. I wound a plaid scarf around my neck. My over-warm apartment always made me forget it was still winter outside. I took the rest of the loaf with me to finish for lunch.

The bread kept talking to me on the train to work. “As the protein chains grew in the primordial sea and became the bacteria base of all life, that bacteria was yeast. Yeast was the first being on a planet of rocks and sea. Therefore all life is bread.” This was the second time the loaf had explained bread history to me. I knew that yeast was really a fungus, not a bacteria, but didn’t feel like arguing. Besides, I’m always careful not to talk to bread in public.

The first bread ever to speak to me was a loaf of golden semolina that I bought in the Italian food store after the final argument with Susan, whom I’d been seeing for close to two years. When I took it out of the bag and put it on a cutting board, it asked me if I was planning to toast it.

“I never toast fresh bread.”

“Okay, just checking. You seem upset.”

I began telling the loaf about Susan, about how I had found out she was having a fling with an English chef at the French restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The semolina said it would let me know if it heard anything from the baguettes in the restaurant, but I said it didn’t matter anymore.

Since then I’ve talked to at least six or seven loaves, each one different. Heavy varieties, like olive breads and anything with meat or cheese, don’t say much. White breads are the least interesting, whole grains the most thoughtful. Bagels don’t make much sense. Bread has told me that maybe one out of five million people can understand its language.

On the way home from work, I stopped to buy a loaf at a bakery near the office. I tried not to be overwhelmed by the bread sounds around me. The fat loaves of country white complained about the skinny onion baguettes, while a basket of whole wheat rolls laughed at its own jokes. I selected a loaf of something called struan. The label on the shelf said it was made from wheat, corn, oats, brown rice, bran, buttermilk, and honey. It laughed and talked at the same time, a lusty, world-loving voice full of confidence and mirth. I heard it entertaining the other loaves, whistling like the sound of a baroque flute. On the way home I bought a newspaper and some fresh mozzarella.

“You don’t need cheese with me,” the bread said from within the bag. I ignored it. We can’t always do what bread says.

At home, I opened the newspaper and scanned some headlines. I turned to where the loaf sat on my counter and asked: “What’s going on in the bread world right now?”

“In the Negev, a Bedouin has just pulled a fatir from a sajj and handed it to a guest at his tent. In Austin, no, that’s boring. Oh, here’s a good one.” The struan laughed, then continued. “Six blocks from here. A woman just whacked her husband on the side of his head with a long, stale baguette. He’s crying, saying he didn’t mean anything by it. ‘She’s nothing to me, I love you honey, I was weak, it was just a fling, trust me, please.’ Ha ha ha.”

Bread has told me that the mass-produced loaves found in supermarkets are not alive, not real bread. Injected sponge, it calls them. Bread only comes to life with the slow rise method. Mix, knead, let rise. Punch down, let rise again. “Each loaf is interconnected through its yeast culture,” bread has said.

I recently saw a man talking to himself on the train. He spoke with great animation, gesturing to the air in front of him. I thought: is that what it looks like when I talk to bread? The man’s hands were empty, but how could I know whether there was something seen and understood by him alone?