Gluten Breath
MAGGIE SLATER
The bread roll shimmied back into the crinkling newspaper behind the dumpster. The stray dog that had chased it there watched us from the sidewalk, ears perked forward, eyes laser-focused on every move I or the newspaper made.
“Hey. Hey, there. It’s okay.” I kept my voice light and airy, puffed up like buttery pastry. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. I don’t eat bread.”
I inched to my knees, afraid any sudden movement would attract the dog, and held out my palm, hoping the roll could smell me, sense my safety. “Come on, now. I can get you out of here, okay?”
The paper rustled. The dog rose to his feet and made a high-pitched keening. He lapped up a sinew of drool from his lip. Come on, lady, he seemed to be saying. Go away. It’s mine. I found it.
I patted my open palm with a fist, softly, like knocking on a loaf. Gramma had always said the best way to attract a bun was to sound like its mother.
Sweat trickled behind my ear. It’d be over a hundred degrees by eleven o’clock, and if it stayed on the asphalt, the bun would dry out and die.
“Come on, buddy,” I sing-songed, holding myself as still as I could. The roll inched forward, exposing its pale crust, smudged with dirt. It was the size of a baby’s fist, and so soft the newspaper’s corners pressed dimples into it. I hadn’t seen wild bread in years, not since I’d first moved to L.A. and found corn tortillas nesting in the overgrown shrubs behind my apartment. They’d swoop at me each time I came out, their rough skins slapping greasy streaks across my cheeks until I fled back inside. A possum got them, though, the doughy babies, and the parents never came back.
This looked like a dinner roll, maybe white, maybe wheat. I couldn’t tell with the dirt smudged across its crust. But whatever it was, it wasn’t baked enough to be out on its own. It needed me.
I leaned forward, hiding my teeth. When was the last time I’d let myself eat bread? Months ago. Almost a year. Not since Arnie, at least.
The roll started towards my fingertips, and the dog’s nails scrabbled on the pavement. I lunged, snatching the roll and hoisting it over my head before the dog jumped up, scratching, barking, almost growling.
I backed away slowly. He dropped to all fours, whining, as I made my way down the block to where I’d parked my car for the gym. He watched from the curb even after I pulled away, the roll on my lap, nestled against my stomach.
“You found a what?” My mother frowned at me through the phone. “A bread roll? In the city?”
“I was surprised, too,” I said. “It seems really young. I’m not sure what to do with it. What do they eat?”
“Flour, mostly. Bit of water. But Reece, honey, a wild roll ...”
“I know.”
“It probably won’t survive. Once you’ve touched it, it won’t smell right to its own kind. Where is it now?”
“In the oven.”
“Don’t put the heat on too high!”
“I’ve just got the light on. It seems comfortable.”
I glanced over the kitchen island at the shadowed lump hopping across the rimmed baking sheet. “Are there any bun rescues?”
“Hmmm.” My mother pressed fingertip to chin, acting out thinking, too conscious of the camera. “I’ve heard of sourdough starter rescues, but nothing for rolls and buns and that kind of thing. They don’t do well in captivity.”
“Well, I’ll look around, I guess.”
“Just don’t get your hopes up, sweetie. Remember Gramma’s story about the biscuits she found as a girl? In Lone Wolf?”
That was what I’d been thinking of when I picked up the roll, its powdery flour clinging to my fingers, streaking my black yoga pants with prints. Gramma in farm overalls and mousey brown braids, arms spread wide in front of her dresser as Great Grandpa eased her aside and opened the top drawer to reveal a half-dozen biscuit rolls, still doughy, huddled in a cotton towel.
Gramma loved to tell that story. “I begged him, I really did, but he wouldn’t have it. ‘Clara,’ he said to me, ‘they’re not going to survive without their mama. They won’t know how to look after themselves. Rolls like these, they breed by the dozen. Everything eats them. The coyotes and foxes, the crows, even our own cats and dogs. These ones here are too young and underproofed to survive. Best to just let them go and let nature do what it will.’”
She hadn’t told him she’d eaten the mother, that she hadn’t known there were babies when she snared the old biscuit in the culvert shrubs, not until after she’d stuffed it down. She couldn’t just leave them.
“I couldn’t just leave it,” I said to Mom. “The dog would have gotten it. What was I supposed to do?”
“That’s life, hon. It’s not pretty, and it’s not fair, but it’s natural.”
“Okay, well, thanks.”
I’d hoped to hang up before she asked, but she snuck it in. “Oh! Did you get my present?”
The new juicer crouched on my kitchen counter. “Yup. Came yesterday. Thank you.”
“And we’re going to lunch day after tomorrow, yes?”
“I’ve got it in my calendar.”
“Great. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too.”
“Did you find the recipe book, with the juicer? It’s supposed to come with a recipe book. I don’t know how good they are, but I’ve got a whole bunch I’ve found online. I’ll print them off for you!”
“That’s ... yeah. Okay. Great.”
“You remember Pauline? From down the street?”
Pauline was my mother’s favorite weight-loss success story. “Yeah, I know Pauline.”
“She got a juicer last year, and she’s lost thirty-five pounds! Can you believe that?”
My stomach rumbled and I made some semi-surprised noise.
“I mean, she didn’t do it to lose weight. She was fine the way she was”—that was for my benefit—“but she says she’s had so much more energy since she’s been juicing. She looks amazing. Very bright and happy, you can tell.”
“Great. Looking forward to it.”
“Let me know what you think. It’s supposed to be easy to clean. That’s the biggest issue with juicers: they’re hard to clean.”
I draped myself over the narrow kitchen island, the faux marble chilling my forehead, muffling my voice. “Right. Well, hey. I gotta go. I’ll see you Thursday.”
“Great! I’ll see you then. And I’ll bring those recipes!”
I hung up and turned my cheek to the cold stone to look at the oven. The bun had settled into the terrycloth hand towel I’d put in with it, and appeared to be sleeping. A faint odor of warm flour tickled my nose before I pushed myself up and got on with my afternoon.
I called the only two organizations in Southern California that claimed to take bread rescues, but none had room for a baby bread roll. One refused anything but raw starters, and the other—a reserve in Joshua Tree—had lost its state funding and was shutting down, shipping their older loaves to out-of-state reserves.
I let the roll onto my bed that night, watching it tumble over the lumps in the crocheted blanket Gramma had gifted to me upon college graduation. Brown and yellow and red and tan, its coiled flowers looked a little like cinnamon buns. I laughed as the roll pounced from one circle to another.
“What am I going to do with you?” I asked as I carried it back to the oven’s warmth. I put a bottle cap of water down, a sprinkle of flour.
The shelter in Joshua Tree had suggested salt, too, as wild loaves tend to be bland without easy access, but the pinch I’d put in the corner went untouched. The roll cuddled up in the hand towel, comfortable in a way I envied. The yeasty odor made my mouth water.
I checked my watch: almost ten o’clock. I should have been in bed half an hour ago so I’d get my full night’s sleep. Bad to have an irregular sleep schedule, the news had been harping on that lately: it’s a killer. Like alcohol. Like cigarettes. Like sitting too much and eating too much and being lonely or pessimistic.
I closed the oven door softly and spent the next hour scrolling Instagram Reels of vegan and gluten-free chefs, protein advocates, and supplement hotties. I found a few juicer influencers, too, with some recipes that looked almost palatable.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Arnie had said on our second date.
“What doesn’t?”
“Your weight. I just want you to know it doesn’t bother me. All bodies are beautiful.”
I probably should have ghosted him right then and there, but I hadn’t dated anyone in a year, and loneliness kills. Besides, Arnie was hot and smart and active and interesting and liberal-minded. I didn’t have to argue about abortion or the suppression of women throughout history. He got it.
Plus he cooked. Not just cooked: he’d come out to California after working for ten years under New York City’s top chefs. For a year and a half, I didn’t have to come home from work and scrounge through my kitchen or order out. I’d walk in the front door, drop my bag, and the aromas of parmesan, roasted peppers, lentils, barley, and collards would wrap me up in a hug, erasing the day’s stress. He made my house a home.
He’d know what to do with the bun.
I pulled up his Instagram account and skimmed the latest posts: plates of deconstructed minestrone with bright red sauce, vegan sashimi, dandelion greens accented by sunset-colored snapdragon blossoms, and there—! I zoomed in on a girl in kitchen whites beside him, arms around each other, big grins on both faces.
Second year anniversary for @THE_FLUME, the caption read. Stop by Thursday for Alecia’s famous vegan blanquette de veau! #vegancuisine #finedining #michelin #theflume #eatmoreveggies
I slapped my phone face down on my bedside table and stared at the ceiling until I finally, unwillingly, drifted off to sleep.
I hadn’t seen Arnie in person in almost five weeks, but when his cheeks rose in a smile as I came up to meet him behind his restaurant, my heart almost overproofed.
“Reece! Hey! Long time no see. How are you?” He pulled me into a hug, his arms rock hard and warm. Then he looked me up and down like a farmers market leek.
“You look great.” He nodded, squinting. “I mean, wow. Really great.”
“Thanks.” My face burned. He’d never once in our relationship complimented me on my looks. But he looked good, too. Smelled good, like oregano and parsley and cumin. My stomach cramped with hunger.
“I mean it. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it, you know? So what’s up? You said you had a question?”
The pecs under his tight T-shirt looked like rolls of dough waiting to rise. It made me sweat.
“Um, yeah. You’d mentioned, way back”—back when he loved me or claimed to but maybe didn’t really—“you had a cousin who ran a bread sanctuary up in, um, Oregon? In Forest Grove?”
“Frank! Yeah! He’s outside Bend, now. They acquired this huge hundred-acre plot for the project and moved there a few weeks ago.”
“Cool,” I said. “That’s great. Well, um, I was wondering what kind of bread he took in, because, well ...” I held out my phone, with the video of the roll hanging out in my oven.
Arnie let out a whistle. “Holy shit. Where’d you find that guy?”
“Outside the gym. Behind a dumpster. A dog had it cornered there.”
“No kidding. Man. I haven’t seen a wild roll in ...” He laughed. “Geez, ages anyway. I used to spend summers on the sanctuary with Frank when I was a kid. I remember he had this bunch of French boules—funny, feisty things. Crusts could scrape the skin off your hands. They’d been trying to crossbreed with some native fry breads to repopulate the state’s original flocks, but I don’t know if that worked out. It’s been a while since I last spoke to him.”
“Would you happen to know what the place is called? I tried to look it up, but couldn’t find it.”
Arnie thought, brow furrowed. He used to make that face in my living room, when studying a new cookbook or watching fitness influencers. Now I watched them. Studied them. Took notes and hacks and tried out new methods. Somehow, I felt sure, if I ate the right things, did the right activities, maybe, maybe Arnie might—
A woman called for him, and then appeared at the back door: Alecia. Petite, trim, tiny Alecia. Her chef’s whites swallowed her in a way that looked chic and intentional over her boney arms. “Hey, Nick wants to start the meeting at three today. Can we do that?”
We. Their schedules combined. Twinned. Paired. Partnered.
Arnie glanced up. “Hmm? Oh. Huh. See if he can do two, actually. Hey, this is Reece!”
Alecia gave me a bland, practiced smile. “How’s it going.” No interest in her tone. Perfunctory. Well, why should she care? I was the day-old bread, wasn’t I?
As she ducked back inside, Arnie’s doughy gaze followed her and made me sick to my stomach. I remembered that face, too, and how it gradually hardened, crusting over, locking me out.
“Anyway,” he said with a head shake and a chuckle. “What was it you asked?”
“The name of the sanctuary?”
“Oh yeah! It’s Stoneoven. I don’t think they’ve got a website, but I’ll text you Frank’s number. Would that be okay?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, imagining his name flashing across my phone again. “Yeah, no, that’d be great.”
“Awesome. Well, hey, I gotta get back, but it’s great seeing you again. You really look fantastic. I envy your boyfriend!”
I bit back the urge to tell him I didn’t have a boyfriend. It’d seem too desperate, wouldn’t it? Then again, he’d brought it up, so ...
But he ducked inside with a wave before I could respond and vanished into the steel and white kitchen, footsteps drowned out by clattering pots and pans, and knives on cutting boards.
I let the roll sleep in my bed that night, curled up between the pillows. I dreamed of flour sprinkling down from the sky, dusting the world in white, then sticking, clumping. Gummy dough enveloped me, dragging me down under its weight. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even crawl. I think Arnie was there, somewhere behind me, talking at me while ignoring my cries for help.
My phone buzzed at 2:20 a.m. Arnie’s name knocked the sleep from my eyes and my heartrate skyrocketed. I grabbed the phone.
Hey Reece! Here’s Frank’s number. Tell him I said hi!
I copied the phone number into my contacts and slumped back against the pillow. The bun shifted, rustling against the fabric. When I held out my hands, it snuggled up close, tucking itself right up against my throat. I could feel it rumbling softly, purring. Safe.
It was safe with me. I wasn’t Gramma. I didn’t hunt wild loaves across the Great Plains, snaring them with merciless wire. My teeth had never torn apart airy, sun-baked crumb. I didn’t have any dusty loaf-herder with beautiful eyes to flirt with, like she did, his hands calloused from handling ragged crusts. I’d only met my grandfather once before he died, but the way Gramma talked about him all the years after he was gone, even as a child I knew that was real, baked- in-the-bone love.
When Arnie and I were dating, I’d asked him once why he never complimented me, and he made a whole thing out of it, lamenting: “I don’t want you to think I’m just one of those shallow guys who only cares about what you look like. I care about who you are on the inside.”
I took comfort in it, at the time. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted? To be loved for who they were on the inside? I’d thought that’s what Arnie had meant.
But then he’d left. Said we were a good match, but the timing was wrong. He needed to focus on his work. I was a distraction he couldn’t afford.
The excuses fermented in my stomach for months, bubbling into eager, sour-smelling foam. Hope like yeast, feeding on those excuses every day, every hour, every minute. Maybe, maybe, maybe: maybe it wasn’t over, not permanently, just for now, until his work calmed down, until he realized he needed my distraction to have the right work-life balance. Stress: that was another killer.
Then came Alecia.
The number Arnie had given me for Stoneoven went to an automated answering machine which led, after a madness-inducing labyrinth of prompts, back to the main menu. After twenty minutes, I hung up, disgusted and angry.
The roll sunned itself on the hot patio bricks. It was developing a healthy golden crust.
The juicer instruction booklet crinkled as I smoothed it out on the counter and again tried to understand what the hell it needed me to do. I had four scrubbed carrots—not peeled as per the recipe’s note on vitamin retention—and an orange, a cup of thawed pineapple chunks, and a skinned ginger knob. The alien machine sat to one side, its inscrutable connectors and flanges and strainers still encased in clear plastic, autopsy specimens yet to be examined and documented.
The roll on the patio hopped into the sun as the shade began to drift over it. It would probably overbake and dry out. It didn’t have anyone to show it how to care for itself.
How many calories would a bun like that set me back? Two hundred? Three?
Gramma had never counted calories. She’d stalked through waist-high rows of corn, dropping sugar cubes in the dirt, knowing she’d find wild beignets sucking on them by dusk.
She once told me she caught two dozen in a single day. “We ate like Marie Antoinette that night,” she said, pride glowing on her wrinkled face. She must have been nearly ninety by then, still sharp, still funny. “I ate so many of them, I almost got sick, but they were so good, you couldn’t stop, couldn’t waste ’em. Just one more bite. One more. Your tongue cried out for it, even as your stomach shouted, Enough! But it wasn’t every day you got beignets on their migration back to Louisiana. I can still taste ’em, even today.”
I counted back the days, the months, since I’d eaten bread. It had been a whole grain English muffin from a food truck in San Gabriel, right after Arnie had moved out. I don’t know where they got them from, but I suspect they raised them in some crusty backyard somewhere. The girl plucked one from a ten-gallon bucket full of flopping bodies. I jumped when she gave it a whack with a rolling pin. She sawed it open right there on a plywood board before dropping it in the toaster. She offered jam or butter. I’d calculated which would be worse: two pats of butter or two pats of jam, asked if she had olive oil—she didn’t— and picked the jam, figuring fruit had antioxidants, probably. I scarfed down the muffin in my car before anyone could witness, before I felt too guilty. Then I’d logged the calories, heart sinking as I realized that indulging in one muffin had eliminated my lunch allotment.
The bun on the back patio shuffled again. A shape caught my eye on the fence: Clawface, the old tuxedo tomcat who prowled the neighborhood. He hunched on the fence, half-missing tail curled against his side, eyes fixed on the bun. His rear wriggled, and I threw open the back door to shout, “Hey! Hey! Get out of here!”
The bun twirled backwards, bolting for my foot. Old Clawface glared at me and didn’t move.
“Skkt! Go on! I’ll leave you some kibble out tonight, okay?”
He straightened, stretched, and sauntered off, to make sure I knew he was leaving because he wanted to, not because I’d told him to.
I scooped up the bun, still warm from the stones. I took a deep breath, savoring the aroma.
“Come on,” I said, and carried it back to the tray in the oven.
Mom picked the restaurant we met at for lunch, a chic new place with lots of vegan options which she poured over with great care. I could almost see the calories tallying behind her eyes, adding, subtracting, multiplying as she chewed her lip.
“Oh, I love a good cashew aioli, but those always throw off my whole day.” She tapped a manicured finger against the menu. “It’s shocking, isn’t it, how high the calories are for food at restaurants? They do that on purpose, you know. All that fat and sugar keeps us coming back for more. And the portion sizes!”
I mumbled something in response and flipped the menu over. Mom stiffened, pretending not to watch as I scanned the items on the other side, the bad food side. French fries. Nachos. Steak tips.
“You could do some kind of protein,” Mom put in with strained lightness. “If you got the steak tips, you could ask them to hold the fries and not use butter. I’d even steal one if you did that!”
“I don’t want steak tips.” In a bold, black box, I fixated on the seasonal special: beignets. Deep-fried, sweet, doughy ...
“I’m just saying.” Mom turned the menu to look at the bad side, but only for a second, as if simply looking at it might add two inches to her waistline. “I’m sure they can cook it in olive oil instead. You just have to ask.”
“I’m not getting the steak tips.”
“Well, that’s probably wise. With all the news coming out about red meat ...”
She waited, and I could tell she wanted to ask what I was going to get. Instead, she puttered over the menu for another five minutes, and finally settled on something with kimchi and mushrooms.
“Fermented foods are so, so good for your gut, you know. I don’t eat enough fermented foods. Did you try the juicer yet?”
I said I had.
“And? What’d you think? Amazing, right? So many vitamins and minerals! You can almost feel the toxins flowing out of your body.”
I resisted asking which toxins, specifically, when the waiter returned. Mom ordered first.
“There,” she said, setting her menu aside and watching me, expectant.
I looked at the waiter. The waiter looked at me. “I’ll have the beignets,” I said.
The waiter smiled. I smiled. Mom frowned.
After the witness left, Mom said, “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean ...” She glanced around us, as though someone from the NIH might be eavesdropping from a nearby table. Then she sat back, brows arched, trying to look casual. “The beignets! That’s quite the treat.”
“Do you remember Gramma’s stories about catching them on their migration south? Of leaving out sugar cubes?”
Mom laughed sharply. “Well, I’m sure back then, being wild-caught and all, not farm-raised like they must be now ...”
“She didn’t eat them because they were healthy.”
“No, but she didn’t eat them all the time, either.”
“I haven’t had a beignet in fourteen years. Not since we all went to New Orleans.”
Mom’s eyebrows looked like they were trying to fly off her forehead. “Well, I suppose. It’s just a slippery slope, is all.”
“What is?”
“Well, beignets today. Maybe a bagel tomorrow. Did you know a single bagel counts as six servings of grains? That’s half your grains in one meal! It adds up, is all I’m saying.”
My face went hot. “I don’t care. I’m tired of thinking so much about every bite I take, whether it’s the healthiest it could be, whether it’s too many calories, or has some additive that’s going to give me cancer in thirty years.”
She sighed. “But honey, you’ve been doing so good lately—”
“Because I wanted Arnie to like me again.” I’d never said it, never even let myself think it, but there it was, a lump of truth dough lying on the table between us.
Mom reached across and took my hand. “Is that what the beignets are about? Food isn’t going to heal a broken heart.”
I drew my hand back. “No. The beignets are because I’ve wanted one for months, and that little bread roll reminded me of Gramma’s stories. I want a beignet because I want a beignet!”
“Okay.” Mom’s hands went up. “Okay. I’m sorry I asked. I just worry, is all. That’s a mother’s job, isn’t it?”
She watched me the whole time I ate my three tiny beignets. It wasn’t enough for a proper breakfast, but I was too embarrassed to order anything else. Twice she offered me some kimchi hash, and twice I refused.
We paid our check and walked out to the parking lot, my stomach clenched with hunger. I had to eat. I was ravenous.
In my car, I watched my mother, waif-thin, drive away, off to spend too many hours thinking about food. Whatever you’re doing, Arnie had said. But what I’d been doing was to please him. To prove to him I could tame myself, make myself smaller, obey the unspoken rules of femininity by spending my time working on me, rather than raging against the world that tried to confine me. And it would never, ever be enough, would it? There would always be another health risk, another aesthetic to conform to, another Arnie to please.
Those beignets had awoken a hunger in me. Not for sugar and fat and french fries and cake. I wanted to be wild. I wanted not to give a shit about calories and antioxidants and pros and cons. I wanted to hunt and eat. I wanted to be feral. I wanted someone who would love that, who would thrill at the danger, not a man whose backhanded compliments played into the same rules and cages, even as he assured himself and everyone else that they didn’t.
I called Arnie as I drove home. He didn’t pick up, which was probably good. I almost left him a voicemail, a long message on how I didn’t care about his low IQ. That I didn’t want him to think I was one of those shallow girls who only liked smart guys. It didn’t bother me. Not at all. So he shouldn’t worry about that, if he was. It was fine with me.
Instead, when I pulled into my tiny driveway, I deleted his number and unfollowed his socials.
I’d left the bun asleep in my bed, the pillowcase powdered with flour, but it wasn’t there now. I looked under the bed. Nothing. I went into the kitchen, looking for flour sprinkles on the floor. Nothing.
I searched everywhere, even checking the back patio, though the door always stayed closed and locked whenever I was gone. I knocked on my palm, echoing a mother loaf. Old Clawface sat on the fence, smirking at me.
“Have you seen it?”
He stared, not even blessing me with eye kisses. Then his ears swiveled forward and his body tensed. I turned. The bun had hopped onto the patio behind me. It must have been under the stove or in some other forgotten corner, because it trailed a clump of hairy dust behind it.
I felt Clawface lunge. I dove for the bun, but the cat got there first, fangs slicing the crust. He tried to get around me, to carry it off, but when I accidentally knocked over an empty terracotta pot, the crash made him lose his grip. He bounded up to the fence, glowering. I snatched at the bun, but it bounced, rolled, spun under the old grill the landlord had left there to rust. Clawface looked like he might try again, but I got myself between him and the grill, making myself big and frightening.
“Get!” Gramma’s spirit rose up inside me, filling me with righteous anger at bread-stealing varmints. “Get! Go on!”
Clawface glared at me. I swore I could see him calculating too, but not for calories. Never for calories. He was calculating for speed, agility, evasion, success. Whatever math he did in his head, he decided it wasn’t worth it and slunk down the fence, jumping off into my back neighbor’s yard.
I dropped to my knees beside the grill and peered under it. The roll had wedged itself all the way back, trembling.
“Hey,” I whispered. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now. He’s gone.”
It didn’t move. When I reached for it, it tumbled away, scuffling along the dirt and gravel.
I tried again, using a stick to block its escape from under the grill, but it jumped back from my hand, the torn hunk of crust dragging like an injured leg behind it.
Could it tell? Could it smell the beignets on my breath? Did it know I wasn’t safe anymore, even if I didn’t want to eat it, covered in dust and dirt and hair, overproofed and underbaked. Could it sense the wild in me now? That I was like Clawface: hungry, dangerous, and prepared to eat what I could catch?
I could feel my Gramma’s genetics in my blood, sharpening my gaze, calculating escape routes and the pros and cons of attacking. In a snatch faster than I thought I could move, I grabbed it and dragged it out. It struggled in my palms, panicked, knowing its life was at an end and in moments teeth would rend it to pieces and swallow it down.
Instead, I brushed the dust off its crusted back and carried it out onto the sidewalk. A few blocks down, away from traffic and congested buildings, a spear of woodlands reached down from the hills. Stepping into the brush, just out of sight if anyone walked by, I knelt to the ground and whispered to the bun, “Live. Make lots of babies for me.”
When I released it, it darted away, bouncing and tumbling to put distance between us. In six months, if it survived, I’d be back, stalking through the woods with a sharpened stick in one hand, flushing the underbrush for flocks of buns. If I was successful, I’d crouch and tear into my prey’s crust like an animal, sating my hunger, at least for a while, my hunter’s eyes already searching for the next meal. And if it didn’t survive? Maybe I’d go north, to Bend, and hunt along Stoneoven’s perimeter, harrying boules and distressing the staff, become a mythic beast they’d warn each other about over smoldering campfires.
I rose to my feet, and with my heart fermenting possibilities, I headed home to eat a proper lunch.
MAGGIE SLATER’s (she/her) fiction has appeared in Metaphorosis and Redivider, among other venues. When she has an almost quiet moment, she enjoys Haruki Murakami novels, sampling craft beer, and hoarding cheap notebooks. For more information about her and her current projects, visit her blog at maggieslater.com, find her @maggiedot_writes on Instagram or @maggiedotwrites on Bluesky.
