The Delinquent Baker

The town had forsaken him, branded him a delinquent baker. He still believed in his custard tarts and no council edict was going to make him think any the less of them. He was not just a baker after all, he was an artist and being an artist meant being misunderstood, most of the time. If you were understood all well and good but you could not then call yourself an artist. You must be out of time, that’s what he was. Out of his mind they said, when all he was, was the future arrived too soon.

He had too many ideas that was the problem, for him and for them. His apple-turn-ons was where it all started, but they with their newsy chit-chat and routine routines would have none of it, were not moved other than to censure. He was not just a baker after all, he was a philosopher and being a philosopher, a philosopher worth their salt anyway, meant being misunderstood, all of the time.  He did not expect them to understand or even to try to. But had thought such a gap would be filled up good with natural wonder. He was always a romantic fool.

Walking along a street passing faces, one unreadable mask after another, it is not easy to distinguish the plumber from the baker from the writer, not by the light in their eyes or the dance in their steps, why you could be queuing for a bus and a genius stood right in front of you and no way of telling, not by sight and not by sound. Likewise the other three senses but smelling, touching and tasting strangers tends not to be welcome behaviour, you usually need to get to know a person fairly well before venturing in to those realms.

He would continue to crumble, there was no stopping him.

Cup-cakes, a few bites and a barely lingering after-taste, they made him seethe, sometimes even lull into an existential torpor. He knew what he would like to do with them.

His cakes on the other hand were a mind-bomb. His chocolate éclairs would make you doubt the existence of others, his jam and cream donuts your own existence.

They all stuck their tongue out at you daring you to stick your tongue around them. They left an impression, stuck with you, they were really sticky.

The thought of them being eaten whether savoured or wolfed down left a sickening churn in his stomach.

Most heads shook involuntarily in disapproval passing his bakery, tutting disgust, if they even deigned to look through his windows. Their idea of a good time cake being some over-sweetened, e-number saturated, factory mass-produced concoction, price as cheap and appetizing as its sugar hit, its sugar kick, its sugar kiss of death.

Those that did venture in, new perhaps to town and innocent of his reputation, inevitably, what with their working minds and weekend aspirations, came only to do the traditional arrangement. They were so venal, so bourgeois. He would not explain himself, often he would chase them right back out the door.

He disdained them their Sunday sensibilities and did not even trouble to hide it. His creations were to be admired, adored, awed. Viewed and reviewed, collected and curated.

But to be eaten…