Chapter 04 - Dry Mouthed, Dry Eyed

Today would've been her birthday.

She would always carry around this kind of bread, wherever she went. No matter how many she ate, she always had another to munch on. She hadn't even grown up in a bakery, but the local bakery became like a home to her. They used to make plenty of this kind of bread, knowing that she would end up buying most of them. She had been like a daughter to them, I think. But now that she's gone, well...

They just don't make as many anymore.

The lady who runs the place offered me a solemn smile as I picked up the very same breads. I smiled back and quietly left.

The bag seemed to get heavier as I closed the door.

I didn't have much in the way of birthday decorations. I ended up just sticking a small candle in the bread and staring at her picture until the candle had burned to the bottom. Such a short amount of time had gone by too quickly.

I plucked the candle out of the bread and ripped off bits of it before popping it into my mouth. Only then did I realize how thirsty I was, so I grabbed some orange juice. I'm not sure if it was the taste of the juice or something else, but it went really well with the bread. Eventually, I ran out of juice and felt too dizzy to get another bottle. But I kept on eating the bread.

And that's what I ate for the whole day. Just orange juice and bread.