Stories in (super) Short #26: Miss Hawthorn’s cakes

There’ll always be cakes in Miss Hawthorn’s shop window. Creamy round cakes topped with cherries and pink glazing that turns sweaty in the sun. Although the grime and the dust of the busy street, pounded by the crowd’s busy feet, dirties and stains the glass of Miss Hawthorn’s shop window, the cakes always look so delectable, so colourful, even on the greyest of days, even on the saddest mornings. Chuck leans against the glass and winks at Miss Hawthorn. Miss Hawthorn leans over the counter and winks back at Chuck through the glass.

That’s the way the morning goes.

Miss Hawthorn is an emblem of the past. Chuck bought his son a cake here when he was six years old. The cake was a macaroon, if you can consider a macaroon a cake. A chocolate macaroon with a thin sheet of edible coconut-flavoured sugar paper along the base that his son promptly tucked into his pink mouth.

Now, his son lives in Killdeer, North Dakota, thousands of miles away. A land, his son says, of adventure, a real American adventure! Well. There’s adventure to be had here, right here, on this old street.

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Can’t post much more, going to submit the whole piece to a competition, and, failing that, to some sort of magazine, journal or whatever might take it.

Here’s the opening lines, anyway.

Other stories

Stories in Short #24 (The last doge of Venice)

Stories in Short #20 (Mary Trembles)

Stories in Short #22 (The glittering senselessness of alcohol)