The child eats. The child sleeps. The child cries. Needs to be changed. Cries. Sleeps. Eats. Sleeps. Cries. The Baker is tired (he'd expected his wife, back before witches and woods and becoming a widower, to do much of this work) and he is frustrated and he is lonely. (He tries not to be, but it is difficult. He likes to think she'd understand.)
"Good morning," he says, to the space where his wife used to sleep. "Another day, another loaf of bread, another day."
The child screams. The Baker climbs out of bed. Outside, the sun continues to slumber.
Another day, another loaf of bread, another witch: and so it goes.
When the Baker met his wife ("your mother," he tells the child, late at night when the moon is but a sliver of silver slicing through the dark), she was a girl. He was a boy, apprenticed to the Old Baker (his father), and not a baker himself yet (not for five more years, at which point his father would-
-well, that's another story altogether).
But when the Baker met his wife, they were young, and they were carefree, and they had all the time in the world (for flowers, and chocolates, and kisses that tasted of sourdough bread). They were happy. They were young. Happy. Young. Carefree. Young. Happy.
So he asked her to marry him. ("When I am a baker, myself," he'd said, "And can afford a house big enough for an even dozen." "Like eggs?" she'd asked, and her laugh was like warm buttermilk. "And am I a hen?"). She said yes (she said, "yes, yes, yes, you silly fool.") She was the most beautiful woman in the world. The witch next door wished them joy and prosperity (they didn't know she was a witch, then, or they'd never have accepted the flowers) and luck.
Another morning, another witch, another basket of bagels: and so the days pass.
"I wish," the girl says (the Baker holds his breath), "I didn't have to worry so about my weight. Oh, well, I'll take half a dozen of those pink puff pastries and a loaf of whole wheat."
The Baker reaches for a box.
"Ooh, and one of those blueberry scones!"
It takes three tries for him to cut the string, but he does, and he wraps the package, and he sends the girl on her way. "Say hello to Jack for me, will you?"
Jack never comes to the baker's shop, but he is especially fond of whole wheat bread. Such is the way of things. The Baker rearranges the pastry case and makes a note to sharpen the string cutter after closing. He waits for his next customer, betting with himself that it'll be the former princess. He is wrong.
Another witch, another dozen muffins, another afternoon: and on and on and on.
It isn't the princess. Isn't the witch. Isn't the girl, the boy, the prince, the witch, the princess, the boy, the girl, the witch. The man who enters his bakery is tall, dark, handsome: quintessential prince material, if ever the Baker saw it, but he is wearing patched pants and a greying shirt. So not a prince, then. Not today.
"I wish," he says (the Baker winces), "I could decide between the wheat and the twelve grain."
The Baker exhales. "I'm partial to the twelve grain myself," he says, "but there are those who prefer the whole wheat."
"I'll take the twelve grain, then, I think." The man who is not a prince (the Baker doesn't know what he is, exactly, but thinks of disguises and woods and witches and giants and babies and beanstalks, and doesn't ask) pulls out a pouch of more gold than the Baker typically sees in a year. Two. Sometimes three. Maybe four. The Baker passes the man his loaf of bread.
"My name is Phillip." The man holds out his arm. Tilts his head. Smiles. The Baker reaches out and shakes his hand: a moment, a ritual, a glance, a greeting. A moment. The man called Phillip's eyes crinkle at the corners.
"Hello," the Baker says. "Nice to meet you."
A moment (the Baker blinks).
The man leaves. The Baker smiles. Returns to his work (kneading dough, stoking the oven, arranging the display cases, whistling). At home, his son is waiting. He decides to close up early.
fin.
[once more into the fray]