Toast (Prompt 056, 100OriginalFics Challenge)
Title: Toast
Author: RavanaSnape
Prompt: 056 (Breakfast)
Rating: PG
Length: 383 words
Summary: It's no longer a meal, but an obligation.
When she was little, breakfast meant cornflakes and milk. At the weekends it was dippy eggs with marmite soldiers. There was her toast phase: just on time for the bus. Her fruit phase: too late for the bus, too late to eat, grab something - was busy reading. When she hit thirteen there was her coffee phase, which for a short while even surpassed books as the first thing she engaged with in the mornings. Breakfast was something she did to placate her mother, when she remembered.
Now she has coffee, along with anything that comes to hand. Breakfast is no longer lazy, indulgent, propped up against the papers and she has long since left school. Breakfast stops her from fainting over her work, from low blood sugar and unnecessary (and forced) trips to the doctor’s.
She lives by herself, has done since she was seventeen. She sold her parents’ furniture, donated the clothes. She hired a housekeeper to deal with the post, the milkman and the solicitor. She goes to book fairs and lectures, haunts the universities. Sometimes she’ll look up from her work and find a cooling pot of tea, a plate of sandwiches. The housekeeper thinks her an eccentric.
Once a month she leaves the house, but not to resume her quest. She finds a pub, a bar, a club and walks in, surrounds herself with the noise and music. Sometimes she’ll meet someone she knew at school - another way to placate people; she is wise enough not to withdraw from society, to invite awkward questions. Other times it is strangers who intrigue her. Not all the trips are wasted; sometimes she’ll meet lawyers, teachers, doctors - people who can point her, unwittingly, in another direction, give her more scope in her hunt. On these nights she returns at dawn, lets herself in quietly and sleeps for a few hours.
When she wakes up, it is invariably to see a pot of coffee and some toast by her bedside. She doesn’t mind it cold; breakfast is breakfast, after all. She gets up, washes, gets dressed and lets herself into her study. At the moment the topic is fifteenth century theology - there are some odd references in a manuscript that scholars haven’t been able to explain. Settling into her chair, she renews her quest.
Author: RavanaSnape
Prompt: 056 (Breakfast)
Rating: PG
Length: 383 words
Summary: It's no longer a meal, but an obligation.
When she was little, breakfast meant cornflakes and milk. At the weekends it was dippy eggs with marmite soldiers. There was her toast phase: just on time for the bus. Her fruit phase: too late for the bus, too late to eat, grab something - was busy reading. When she hit thirteen there was her coffee phase, which for a short while even surpassed books as the first thing she engaged with in the mornings. Breakfast was something she did to placate her mother, when she remembered.
Now she has coffee, along with anything that comes to hand. Breakfast is no longer lazy, indulgent, propped up against the papers and she has long since left school. Breakfast stops her from fainting over her work, from low blood sugar and unnecessary (and forced) trips to the doctor’s.
She lives by herself, has done since she was seventeen. She sold her parents’ furniture, donated the clothes. She hired a housekeeper to deal with the post, the milkman and the solicitor. She goes to book fairs and lectures, haunts the universities. Sometimes she’ll look up from her work and find a cooling pot of tea, a plate of sandwiches. The housekeeper thinks her an eccentric.
Once a month she leaves the house, but not to resume her quest. She finds a pub, a bar, a club and walks in, surrounds herself with the noise and music. Sometimes she’ll meet someone she knew at school - another way to placate people; she is wise enough not to withdraw from society, to invite awkward questions. Other times it is strangers who intrigue her. Not all the trips are wasted; sometimes she’ll meet lawyers, teachers, doctors - people who can point her, unwittingly, in another direction, give her more scope in her hunt. On these nights she returns at dawn, lets herself in quietly and sleeps for a few hours.
When she wakes up, it is invariably to see a pot of coffee and some toast by her bedside. She doesn’t mind it cold; breakfast is breakfast, after all. She gets up, washes, gets dressed and lets herself into her study. At the moment the topic is fifteenth century theology - there are some odd references in a manuscript that scholars haven’t been able to explain. Settling into her chair, she renews her quest.