Second Rise — day three

You bake. You never say what you meant.

The fire is lit for one day. One bake leaves this counter today.

One scoop is left in the starter jar. The old dough. It is the only thing in this shop older than you, and it can only be spent once: into a bake, or into someone else’s hands.

Two people are coming. One of them needs the scoop.

the fire is lit

starter

First

The girl with two coins

She doesn’t speak. Two coins on the counter, same as always. This time she isn’t looking at the door.

Her grandmother has stopped knowing her. The small warm thing still gets eaten, but the woman who eats it looks at the girl like a stranger. The girl wants the one thing that might reach past that: the old dough, the same loaf her grandmother ate here as a child. A loaf, and the old starter in it.

Her bake — shape

What goes in

While she waits

The young baker from two streets over

Flour to the elbows, a stranger’s apron, a dead jar under one arm.

“A scoop. Anything you can spare. Mine’s gone.”

She isn’t asking to be fed. She’s asking for the means to feed someone else. Give her the last scoop and her oven lives, and yours goes cold. There is only one.

The last scoop

What it cost

Who got the last scoop, and who was left with an empty jar?

In your own words, before you read the numbers back. There is no right answer here. There is only the one you made.

Did you want a day four?

Tell me yes or no, and one thing that confused you. That’s the only review I need.

Second Rise — Alexander