Baby Cakes

By Alison Wassell

Photo by American Heritage Chocolate on Unsplash

Listen to a reading of this piece by the author:

In the childless chasm that has opened between us, we bake a baby cake. The trouble is, we can’t agree on the ingredients. I favour my family’s traditional recipe:

225g of compassion

200g of resilience

One loyal heart

Half a teaspoon of humility

250g of creativity

A splash of joy

In my grandmother’s mixing bowl, I cream the compassion and resilience until they are light and fluffy, then carefully pour in the heart. I sift the creativity and fold it into the mixture before adding the humility and joy. I pour the mixture into an infant shaped tin and bake in a pre-warmed oven for one hour. The cake is golden brown, well risen, with a feather-light texture and a subtle sweetness.

You shake your head, unsatisfied. This cake could be anyone’s, you say. Where is the dash of ruthless ambition, the sharp tongue, the slightly sour sense of humour, the grit, the determination, the zest for life? You push me aside and whisk up a mixture of your own. The result is “strikingly original” (your words), “unpalatable, barely edible” (mine).

As a scientific experiment, we combine all our ingredients in the one bowl, and add a few extra. Courage and patience, from me. Self-discipline and independence, from you. The cake we create sinks in the middle under the weight of our expectations.

Having lost our appetites, we crumble our cakes, leave them out for the birds, along with our hopes and dreams. In the morning, finding the bird table as empty as our hearts, we agree to go our separate ways.

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Alison Wassell is a writer of short and very short fiction from Merseyside, UK. Her work has been published by Fictive Dream, The Disappointed Housewife, The Phare, Ink Sweat And Tears, Gooseberry Pie, FlashFlood, Does It Have Pockets and elsewhere. She has twice been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award.