Bread and Coffee - Flash Fiction
By Sabrina J Lindsay
The sour smell of yeast mixing with deep warmth as it died in the oven—turning crisp and lovely—bread—bread surrounded her childhood. Sitting up on chairs, leaning over to take a bit of dough from grandma’s hands, and failing to twist it into a knot for baking. The little girl made other shapes, tiny loaves in tin-foil pans, snowmen stacked on top of one another, then the worst bit, the waiting.
She learned that making bread is a lot of waiting, hours upon hours where you only check the dough to make sure it's growing as it should. Sometimes you must beat it down so it can bloom again. She watched how her grandmother would collapse the dome of dough, folding it over gently, before she finally made it pretty and covered it once again to grow.
You shouldn’t look at it as it grows, it should be left in peace to find its shape—bread that is. It grows in the dark and the warm.
Finally, it was done and slipped into a hot oven—in the blistering heat it grew again, just a little more it rushed up for the last time. Steaming as they were pulled from the oven, the smell was different now, no longer sour there was only the warmth left in the air. Warmth that could only come from this and soon it was joined by the deep scent of coffee.
Something she was too young for, something she could only have with a bun—in a little teacup. She felt so delicate, so feminine. Grandmother took the butter and spread it over the fresh bread, seconds later it melted into light gold. The little girl dunked it in her teacup, coffee spilling on the saucer before taking a bite. She savored the bit of adulthood she got to taste, the deep—nearly bitter—taste of it. Again and again, bread and coffee.
She watched her grandma, watched as she cooked, watched as she cleaned after. She waited excitedly for cookies and muffins, Christmas dinner, and tamales, but it always came back to bread and coffee. Bread she had grown beside, bread that she sometimes still took from grandma’s hands.
