Leftovers

I used to skip pebbles across the lake when the water was calm. It was meditative to watch the ripples fade into the distance when the morning light was soft and there was still fog and mist. I remember how big the stones would feel in my small hands as a child. I also remembered getting sand and grit all over my fingers. That’s how I felt now. Sand and grit all over my fingers. But it wasn’t sand or grit, it was sugar crystals.

Instead of water stretching out away from me, it was dough. Mountains of pizza dough. I snapped back to my work and continued pounding the sticky mixture until the sugar crystals dissolved into the mass of flour and water. I formed the blobs into soft round balls, then transferred them to quarter pans to proof.

There was a tab of acid or something leftover from last night. I was so tired and bored rolling up hundreds of balls of dough that I didn’t even care what it was. I took it… it definitely wasn’t acid. I had never had anything like this before… 

The dough started to run away, jumping into the oven. All I could think was that I needed to turn it up to scare the dough back out. With only half an hour left until my prep shift overlapped with someone else’s shift, I managed to crank the ovens high enough to ignite the pizza boxes sitting in stacks on top of and next to the ovens. Or was that the dough that did that?

The blaze spread rapidly. It was so hot in there. I needed a drink. I opened up the cooler in the front, opened up a glass bottle of root beer, and took a long, deep swig. It was so nice to feel the cold on the inside and the hot on the outside. The whole building was burning now, and  I think my clothes were too. At least I didn’t have anything gritty on my hands anymore. I drifted off, a ripple riding out into the mists…