Baker's Morning Routine

Bakers was unable to get to her local cafe at eight o’clock sharp, so she glued herself to the tail end of the queue that had snaked around the corner behind two women wearing matching mink hats whose idle chatter made her want to sever off her head. The shorter woman would huff agreeably to some politically offensive comment the taller woman would make- something about women deserving infidelity if they ‘had it coming’- to which Shorter mink would feel compelled to nod gravely to Taller mink and tap her watch as if to say ‘time is ticking for your ovaries’. Their wrinkled-nose conversation switched abruptly to whether this local cafe served the best skim milk cappuccino in town or not. Bakers fixated her gaze on the shuffling line, impatiently tapping her foot. Bakers did not care whether it was the best. Her routine had to keep her mind ticking and movement calculated.

At the front of the queue, the boy behind the counter handed her the coffee. She nodded in return. She had seen him with his dripping green hair and infected septum every morning for the last six years. After the first month of attending the café, he no longer asked for her order as it never differed. Not out of fear of change, but out of a numbing kind of comfort. What was his name again? She had never paid attention to his crooked name tag. It started with J. Jake, Jasper, Joseph? Perhaps something wildly rebellious he changed himself to his conservative father’s glassy-eyed shock. Regardless, it would never be relevant. The world ticks on long after the nameless barista hands a customer their coffee.

Bakers stood in the street to take a sip. There was something viscous about how it slid down the cavity of her throat. The liquid congealed, trickling down her oesophagus, past her thyroid to sink successfully into her stomach. It was wonderful, yet tantalising. Perverse, yet oddly familiar. Her tongue seared with an inexplicable joy. Suddenly the sky appeared brighter. The trees became greener. A smile almost slipped between her pale lips.

Every morning, Bakers had a large cap, two sugars, extra hot. She wiped the excess froth off of her lip and was intrigued to find a smear of red foam across the back of her hand.

The churning halt of the eight-forty-five bus. With a slight tremor, she discarded the cup as she boarded, avoiding the driver’s gaze. A stream of passengers parted, allowing her to shuffle into a window seat. The bus resumed its course, chugging along the main road with an irritable lurch. Did that barista kid spike my coffee? She thought with alarm.

Her eyes wandered to the asphalt path where a young man offered a woman his jacket. She could almost feel the woman’s heart pulsate, all slippery and hot, yearning for touch. He wrapped the corduroy around her shoulders. A coy smile stretched across his lips as he leaned in toward her. A familiar ache reverberated in Bakers’ chest.

“Where’s your jacket Birdie?” Andrew Bakers wrapped his arms around her. A rose-coloured flush warmed her cheeks. She laughed teasingly, “Next time I’ll dress for the weather.” From an unassuming meet-cute and coffee, Bakers found herself drawn to him. As conversation flowed rich like a scarlet merlot, she fell for his idiosyncrasies one by one; the way his hair parted around his face, the way the hazel glint in his eyes lit up when he talked about his dreams. In minutes Bakers knew this was the man she was going to marry.

“Here-” He took off his outer coat. “I will keep you warm.” Her heart skipped a beat as he wrapped the jacket around her shoulders. She could still recall their first kiss. How when their lips met for the first time, the world fell away from mundanity into screaming colour.

The eight-forty-five shuddered to a stop. In a daze, Bakers disembarked and walked to her favourite bench in the local park. The sun shied between the clouds in the sky, casting elusive shadows on the rolling hills. The park always maintained an eerie silence around nine o’clock before the children of the nearby preschool would come out to play on the old equipment. Bakers reached for a loose paper bag in her purse, generously scattering its contents on the ground around her feet. The resident pigeons bobbled to where she was seated and began pecking at the dirt.

Bakers could still imagine her daughter’s tiny shoes that used to dangle from the bench. “Can I go on the swings?” She cooed beside her, tugging on her mother’s skirt. “Pleeease?” “Not for long- Daddy will be here soon.” With a bounce in her step, she skipped off to the play equipment. She smiled, waving to her daughter. Bakers thought she wore motherhood well.

Her marriage was the envy of all her friends. Andrew was the perfect, punctual husband. He never complained after a long day at the office and he would never fail to charm her with his dashing smile whenever she was exhausted. She checked the clock on her phone. He had promised to meet them at the park twenty minutes ago.

Punctual. Perhaps the train back from the city was running late. It was unlike him not to call and let her know if he had been held up somehow.

Perfect. A notification flashed on her screen. Her heart dropped. A withdrawal has been made from your joint account. Her chest pounded violently against her coat. $7200 from Tiffany’s. Her hand began to tremble as she stared at her own cheaper engagement ring.

A violent shriek rippled through the park. Bakers looked up from her daze to find a boy from the nursery shaking his hand at something. Was it to attract attention? What are they pointing at? The child’s sniffle broke into a wail as a pigeon lay writhing in asphyxiation. It kept convulsing as the boy’s desperate cry turned to a high-pitched shriek. With a violent hack, the pigeon coughed up an individual tooth. A teacher rushed over, staring at the dirt and then at Bakers with sheer horror. An assortment of teeth were scattered around like breadcrumbs.

***

Bakers slammed the front door of her apartment. Her eyes darted around the kitchen, itching for an escape. From the kitchen counter, she generously poured herself the remaining contents of a discounted merlot.

Punctual. With Andrew, she had felt whole. The bedtime happily-ever-after of her childhood came to fruition when he loved her. In efforts to preserve him, she had kept up their old morning routine. As the room began to spin and blur, she took another swig.

Perfect. Three years of living their perfect life fell beneath her without warning. He told her he had met someone. The pain of his indifference carved her out and made her hollow from the inside. From then, she was consumed by a bitterness that chewed away at her, piece by piece, until she only existed as half of a person. She brought the bottle up to her mouth, wondering exactly how old her daughter would be now.

Bakers wandered to the freezer. Pushing through frozen debris, she clawed at the back tray to find something to defrost. A smile dawned on her lips. Bakers was coming around to living life without him. Carefully, she unwrapped the plastic and placed her food in the microwave, setting the cooking time to four minutes. Kneeling down at eye level, she watched Andrew’s severed head spin slowly on the turntable.