This piece was published at Mad Swirl sometime in 2011.
Bake Up
She had imagined once that love was soft and squishy like carrot cake or
banana bread. With Claude, it was at first, if not a little moister
than she wanted. But as the initial passion wore off, she found it to
be a little more light and flaky– croissants, cherry pinwheels; she
found the portions bigger but less filling.
Three years of her life had been
given to Claude, and she could no longer pretend that she even liked
him. They had grown distant, torn by the pressures of life, and unable
or unwilling to do the kneading needed to keep their affection growing.
Evelyn was considering leaving
him. The relationship had become crunchy and dense like the crust of
the pie she was baking. It was going to be a surprise for Claude when
he got home. Yet, even though she wanted to show him how much she loved
him, she couldn’t help feeling that they, as a couple, were already
dead. The pie would not take away the hurtful things that had been
built between them, layers of bitterness caked together into shells hard
as bricks.
Evelyn watched the pie in the
oven. It browned into a beautiful gold. It was the finest pie she had
ever made. She waited, the shell grew darker. It cracked, and the peak
began to burn. The pressure inside built, and the pie grew,
mountainous, monstrous. When the crust was completely deformed and
black, Evelyn removed it from the oven. Crying, she left.
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Near Misses
9 years ago
