Fantastic Metropolis

Finally, he begins the first cut. The arm comes down, knife edge presses my crust. Ah, he’s experienced—he turns me on my side. I can’t breath, I can’t think. His hands, delicate, like those of an artist. I wish he would hold me forever. The new knife bites. I feel it. Back and forth, back and forth. He saws with precise strokes. Yes, yes. I feel it. I can’t take it. I don’t want it to end. Oh oh oh. I can’t I don’t I can’t. Ahh. It’s over now. They’re eating. I can rest.

Epilog: Bread Aria

In the sky, a lone cloud slid across the blueness, borne along by the breezes of the young spring. The late afternoon sun shone just over the tops of the buildings. A man coming out of an apartment building squinted and probed his shirt pocket. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slid them over his eyes. On the way to the crosswalk he sidestepped a puddle of rusty water that had accumulated from a dripping fire hydrant.

Inside the Italian food store, Hawk Face watched as a boy in his mid-teens brought several fresh loaves of pumpernickel from the oven. She pushed a few whole wheat baguettes aside to make room. The pumpernickel thanked her for giving them a spot near the cash register; she didn’t respond. She stood leaning with her elbows on the counter, staring at the cheeses and sausages in the glass case opposite her. Few customers had come in that afternoon; she kept looking at her watch. Her eyelids, colored a metallic blue, drooped over her pupils. Her chin kept bobbing as she fought off the afternoon drowsiness.

Behind her, the new pumpernickels, their voices purring like cats, chatted with their neighbors. They discussed the corn muffins in the basket on the counter; one loaf described them as sweet nothings of negligible nourishment. The foccacia, always pushing their pedigree, spoke in haughty tones about the quality of the mushrooms baked into their tops, while the prosciutto bread, sated by its own flavor, said nothing.

Hawk Face continued to stare at her watch, and without lifting her head called out once to the fat man behind the cheese counter, “I’m so damn bored I almost wish a bus would drop a load of tourists at our door.”

He nodded as he prepared a party tray. A woman with a green scarf over her head came in with a young girl; Hawk Face stood up straight and smiled, her first smile of the day.

“Either that or ice cream, but only ice cream with chocolate chunks,” the girl said to her mother. “Not chocolate ice cream. Or maybe an apple turnover and ice cream.”

“I’ll get you something sweet, but you can’t have it till after dinner.”

“Fine Momma, but I don’t want eggplant again. We’ve been having eggplant all this long winter, and I’m sick of it. Sick of it, sick of it.”

The man with the sunglasses entered; he dropped the glasses back into his shirt pocket. The breads greeted him by name as he glanced at them. He smiled, but walked to the back of the store, where he selected cartons of milk and orange juice. When he returned to the bread, the struan was singing the part of Tamino from The Magic Flute.

“O endless night! Wilt thou never pass?
“When shall my eyes behold the light?”

The pumpernickel, in chorus, answered, “Soon, young man, or never!”

While the woman with the scarf paid for a foccacia and an apple turnover, the girl stared at the bread and giggled. Her mother and Hawk Face apparently couldn’t hear the singing, which was so loud now it would have drowned out their comments about the weather. The girl began humming along with the bread, and continued humming as her mother led her out.

The man stood looking at the bread, which had stopped singing. He idly played with a strand of his dark hair. The semolina bread whispered to its neighbor that they knew the man would pick one of them; the struan, in its commanding tone, told them to hush.

“Well, order something already, before I fall asleep,” Hawk Face said. She smiled.

The man smiled back. He continued to stand before the bread, which began asking in turn, “Choose me—What about me?—Am I the right flavor?—Choose me.” The semolina glowed as he asked for one of them.

The man left the store. Hawk Face turned to watch him through the window as he crossed the street; the remaining loaves resumed the singing. For a moment as she watched, he paused to allow a taxi to turn in front of him. With a pile of baguettes between her and the window, his head seemed to be connected to the bread. The loaves became his body. She shook her head as though emerging from a dream.

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“Tales of the Golden Legend” by Robert Freeman Wexler was first published in The Third Alternative #30 (Spring 2002). This version includes corrections not found in the original printing.