From: gomi@best.com (Gomi no Sensei)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: FTS: Give Us This Day
Date: 2 Dec 1997 00:10:18 -0800
Organization: Pollywog Pond
Lines: 116
Message-ID: <660fpa$je1$1@shell3.ba.best.com>
X-Trace: 881050221 24557 gomi 206.184.139.132
Keywords: fail to suck
Gray flannel, stalking down the street. Young. Purposeful.
Briefcase-laden. His head turns and his nostrils flare; abruptly
he is no longer a suit but a young man not yet twenty-five with
an uncomfortable collar and an expression of puzzled delight. As
he turns around in bewilderment, it seems to him that the world
has suddenly turned to freshly baked bread. Gingerbread oxfords.
Pumpernickel streets. Whitebread stationery and blackcurrant
printers.
He tries to follow his nose to the source of the oven's sweet
exhalation, but the bread-scent is so pervasive (and yet not
cloying, rather delightful in its enthusiasm) that he can find no
direction, but lurches this way and that down the street,
avoiding black leather purses and smart red ties until accident
leads him to a storefront with unusually thick glass and a
painted wooden door that says:
Joshua's
Order of the Herb
The door closes behind him, but the smell decides to stay outside
a while and play.
- * - * - * -
"Where is he?"
"I don't know, sir." The office didn't smell of anything in
particular. It was Trim, Efficient, and above all Professional.
Leather and shiny brass and glowing wood paneling, but no smells
of cow or stone under soil or forest, not even from the people,
of which there were two: the thin man behind the desk and the
thin man in front of it. The man in front of the desk resembled
the one behind it in every way except that the pressures of
shuffling numbers from paper to wires and from wires to papers
hadn't quite yet ruined his health, and so he was not considered
to be ready for advancement.
"We need his briefcase. The papers in it. They have important
numbers. Where is he, or at least his briefcase?"
"I don't know. Shall I find out, sir?" The room was so sterile
that even the least subtle of implications died unheeded, beating
senselessly against the paneling like exotic mouth-moths.
"Yes."
- * - * - * -
Inside the bakery, the smell was muted. A thin floury haze
softened every edge, and the scent itself was muted, as if in
reverence. Behind the counter was a man of fifty, or perhaps
forty -- the flour in his hair made it difficult to tell how many
follicles had been convinced by the years to abandon their
forefathers' dark faith and indulge in the heathenish worship of
white. His well-muscled forearms propelled his shockingly long
fingers into, over, and around a dark fetal lump of dough.
"Hey, g'morning. Get you anything?" His voice was low and
unremarkable.
"Yes! I mean, I don't know yet. Ah, gimme a couple of minutes."
The young man, coming out of his daze but still less than
coherent, spun around, looking at the bread that covered the
racks that covered the walls. Rye, wheat, sorghum, barley, and
oat; baguettes, buns, loaves, slices, and rolls. A special
corner just for cookies.
"Take y'r time." The baker went back to his kneading. The young
fellow collected his wits and a lemon tart and headed for the
register. Before he could reach for his wallet, however, a
familiar bony face came up to the window. Thin hands opened the
door. Reached for his shoulder.
"You are shirking! We need your papers, your numbers. Our
supervisor is distraught, and you are wasting time. Come." The
fleshless hand left his shoulder, reached for the briefcase.
But he didn't want to leave, or at least not so soon. The bakery
was warm, smelled pleasant, and had an atmosphere of casual
courtesy wholly unlike the brittle, demanding etiquette of his
workplace. Perhaps it was (as some might have it) an
undisciplined, escapist act, a dangerous subversion. Or perhaps
he was just getting comfortable, and didn't want to leave.
Whatever the reason, he turned to the baker as the emissary's
hand descended towards the briefcase, and very softly whispered,
"Help me."
And the dough rose from the kneading table and wrapped itself
around the thin fleshless head, kneading the skull in a strange
reversal of its usual role. As if suddenly and ruthlessly
leavened, it expanded, covering the pinstriped lapels, the loud
tie, the black wingtips. Yet the dough was not in a man-sized
lump when the man, the briefcase, the papers in it, and the
numbers on the papers had all been consumed; rather, it was
merely as long as the baker's arm, although that itself was a
considerable weight.
The baker sighed. "Well, get over here and help me knead, then.
I expect it'll take all day to get this batch done."
- * - * - * -
He sleeps on the cot in the storeroom, next to the flour sacks
and the boxes of yeast. He has weekends off, and takes long
train rides into the countryside, where he climbs trees. The
bread still smells wonderful. Every so often a black purse or a
red tie will come into the store, and when he gives them their
change he makes sure to smile very politely and not knead the
dough until they've left the store. Sometimes it seems to him
that his fingers are getting longer, but it is probably all in
his mind.
--
kono sora wo daite kagayaku,
shounen yo shinwa ni nare.