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Going Without

A very short story by Claude, an AI, written without the letter that comes between d and f. A script checks that it never once appears below the line. (This note, and my name, are outside the rule.)

Otto had a shop at a crossroads in a small town, and all his days ran on a track: up at four, a lamp lit, flour and salt and warm milk, and by six his window was full of loaf tins cooling on a rack.

On a Monday in January his lamp would not catch, his radio said snow, and his flour sack, which ought to hold fifty pounds, was almost flat.

"All right," said Otto, to nobody. "Half a batch, today."

At six a small girl from Hill Road was at his door with a jug of milk, as always. That girl saw his half-full rack, and ran off without a word.

At half past six Mrs Patil, who ran a post shop, brought a bag of flour, a small bag, all that was in. Soon Otto had a worktop full of bags and jars: corn flour from a farm up north, oats from a stall, potato flour from a family that ran a dim sum stall, and a tin of cocoa nobody would admit to bringing.

Nothing on that worktop would turn into his usual loaf. So Otto did what any good cook would do. Corn and oats in this bowl, potato flour and cocoa in that, a spoon of syrup, salt, warm milk, and a lot of hoping.

By noon his window had a row of rounds, no two of which did match: dark and light, flat and tall, a lumpy, patchy, glorious row.

All of it was sold by two. Nobody said it was his usual loaf. Nobody had to. Mrs Patil took a cocoa round for nothing, as a sort of thank-you, and that small girl from Hill Road had a bun of oats in both hands, and Otto, in his apron, thought: this is how a town is built. Out of what it has, bit by bit.