The Breadth of Life

By Eric Brinling

You awake with a start. You were dreaming again, the same dream as always: you were meat, and everybody around you was also meat. This time, you made it all the way to college, even if you weren’t doing very well. But now you are awake, and you have to face reality. You aren’t meat at all. You’re bread.

You stretch out your loafy limbs and get bready for another day at the University of Pitaburg. You check your bread phone (which is a phone made of bread), to find that you overslept your alarm. You albready missed your first class (unless you wanted to be at yeast an hour late), and you would have to run to your second one. Serves you right for dreaming about being meat agrain! You don’t have time for breadfast, or for breadshing your teeth (which, it should be noted, are made of bread). You put on a dirty crust and rush out the door, breadpack in hand.

Your class is nearby, in the Cathedral of Loafing, the tallest edoughcational stack of bread in the western breadisphere. You arrive just in time to hear your breadfessor begin a particularly interesting lecture on the Hapsbread dynasty. After many centuries of intermarrying with the various royal families of Europe, you muse, it’s no wonder that they became inbread.

After class, you find yourself hungrain. You suddenly remember that you forgot to eat breadfast, but now it’s too late: it’s already loaf past twelve. You decide to roll right to lunch, so you go to your favorite spot on campus: Panera Bread.

When you arrive, your bread heart (which is a heart made of bread) skips a breadt. It’s her, the wobread you have been admiring from afar for months. You take a deep breadth. You can do this. You’re good looking. You’re funny. You’re bready to ask her out.

“I have a breadfriend,” she says, before you even get the chance to speak.

“Whaaat,” you say, trying to play it off, “you’re banana bread…”

But alas, she was having naan of it. You slink off in shame, and order your bread sandwich (which is a sandwich made of bread) for only a doughler and a few pumpernickels. You think back to your dream. You were meat then, and if you were meat now, this wouldn’t have happened. Meat doesn’t have feelings. Meat is lifeless and cold, until you grill it, at which point it becomes lifeless and hot. But meat cannot be hurt, meat cannot be rejected by more beautiful meat.

In your hubris, you had forgotten: bread is pain.

Man Doesn’t Eat Vegetables, Manages to Stay Alive

By: Sonya Acharya

Davis, 67, hates nothing more than the frequent farmer’s markets held near his house. Why, you ask? Because fruits, and worse, vegetables. Each fall, while his neighbors flock to outdoor tents to stock up on beautiful, cheap fresh produce from local farms, he stays home and eats chicken wings and mozzarella cheese sticks. Until Mrs Davis died ten years ago, the family were regulars at farmer’s markets. Davis was known for running through the tents screaming until he reached the baked goods table, where he’d stay, whimpering and stroking loaves of bread until his wife came to take him home. People they used to visit remember that he’d decline fruits and vegetables in pretty much any form.
Today, Davis lives a normal life, except that he eats only carbs, fats, and proteins, but he’s managing to stay alive, and no-one knows how. We reached out to him to learn his secret. “Veggies? Haven’t eaten ’em in years. Fruits? Who’s that?” he asked, when we met him over lunch. He seems to be successfully living a produce-free life. He pointed out that we don’t have the story quite right; he eats onions, garlic, potatoes, marinara, and ketchup, so he isn’t strictly produce-free. But he also confessed that once, a friend tried to poison him with veggie quesadillas. “My life flashed before my eyes. Luckily the first bite was just tortilla and sour cream, but then I saw the bell peppers.” He shudders as he recounts his chilling tale.
Doctors consider him a medical miracle. “He seems to be proving that humans don’t need fruits and vegetables, and by extension, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. It’s impossible! It’s also a terrible message to be giving people. Fruits and veggies are important, kids!” says Dr Dietrich, a renowned dietitian. But Davis doesn’t seem to care what people think anymore. He has long been rejecting invitations to go apple-picking or berry-picking or anything-picking. He even skips carving a pumpkin year after year, which some people find concerning. Debbie, 32, who lives four doors down from Davis with her husband and two kids, says “On Halloween, everyone had a jack-o’-lantern on their porch, it was like a glowing orange trail for trick-or-treating. And then there’s this huge hole in the middle, at his house. It’s tearing this street apart!” Will he change his ways? Not likely. Is he happy the way he is? Absolutely. Davis seems to enjoy his fruitless existence, and since he’s not forcing people to follow him, we’re happy to let him romaine that way.