The bakery survived by staying open later than regret. Around one in the morning, the place filled with the sort of people cities quietly inherit after ambition goes home. Taxi drivers nursing coffee like medicine and men in office shirts sitting alone with pastries they clearly hadn’t intended to buy thirty minutes earlier.
The smell of fresh bread drifted through the room in warm waves strong enough to temporarily improve humanity's reputation. Celina leaned closer to the cakes while I watched the entrance through the reflection in the window beside her.
“Why are there strawberries on all of them?”
“To imply optimism.”
“That can’t possibly be true.”
“Neither are strawberries in winter. Doesn’t stop people.”
The woman behind the counter laughed softly while sliding our pastries into a paper bag with the precision of someone who’d repeated the movement enough times to survive emotionally elsewhere. We took a booth near the fogged front windows. A man in a delivery uniform entered, bought six coffees without speaking, then disappeared into the night again carrying enough caffeine to medically challenge a horse.
“You think he’s okay?”
“No one buying six coffees at one in the morning is operating from a position of strength.”
Celina laughed into her cup while plucking the strawberry from her cheesecake. Bakeries open after midnight don't really sell bread. They sell another hour before tomorrow arrives.
The story continues on August 09.
The Geometry of Choice: Book I of The Equilibrium Strain.
©️ 2026 Bob Roland. All rights reserved.