Flour Everywhere

Bread and life are the same thing. I am convinced of this. In all my years, I have not found them to be separate from each other. I admit that I have not traveled as far as some, but surely there are no lands where man does not make bread?

I am a baker by trade, but if I had not been brought up in the midst of flour and yeast I know that it would have found my way to the loaves sooner or later. What other food contains such a balance of savory flavor and light sweetness? I have eaten much, and found nothing that compares.

I spend my days in the bakery, naturally, and as my business has grown, I have had to expand into neighboring rooms and even into a cellar next door. As it turns out, a dark, cool cellar is the best place to store certain flours, doughs and rising mixtures, though at first I admit that I had a bad feeling about the place. Being underground is always unsettling. The living stay on the surface, and they eat bread. Such is life.

I was on my way down to that very cellar right now. I had just finished a batch of the airiest rolls this side of the river, and was ready to start my long-aged sourdough (my grandmother’s secret recipe, mind you) and the dough was down below.

The light seemed to be out. I stumbled around in the darkness, fumbling above my head for the bulb. The roof of the cellar wasn’t very high, and I could usually reach it just fine. Maybe I wasn’t quite under the light. I sidled into the flimsy shelves stacked with flour bags, and, with a rending, screeching sound, the metal unsettled itself. I heard it gather momentum before I even had time to step away, and the next thing I knew I was overrun with hundreds of bags of flour, being driven into the cold cement of the floor. I hit with dull crunch, flour everywhere.