This three-liner is for Sonya’s weekly photo prompt.
Photo ©Stephanie McCabe
The baker’s window, with its display of fancy patisserie, always attracted the tourists, but they weren’t free with their spare change, too afraid of being mugged—as if only rich bastards have spare change to give away.
When the sun moved round, he’d follow it to the other side of the street where there was a supermarket and ordinary people who wouldn’t mind slipping him enough to buy a sandwich.
He looked down and met a pair of brown, questioning eyes and glanced contemptuously at the grinning, self-satisfied cakes in the window. “We don’t even like that crap, do we?” he said, with a half-smile and bent to scratch his dog’s ears.
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Very interesting and well observed. In the first sentence, you might substitute the word ‘money’ for ‘wallet’, since pockets carry spare change, and wallets carry notes or money, and pockets carry wallets and spare change…. if you see what I mean.
😀 xxx
You’re right about that. Pure laziness on my part; I had the same thought and couldn’t be bothered changing it. I’ll do that right away 🙂
I thought you might think me a bit OTT, but then, you only have three sentences to play with. 🙂 xx
What’s OTT? If it’s about criticism, I’ve learned that it’s never a good idea to ignore it—the reader always knows best 🙂
Not criticism, I hope, merely an observation. Instead of ‘spare change’ twice, how about ‘coins’.
I love minimalist writing, which is such a delicious challenge. I may be a reader, but actually, editors are the worst. (I find it hard to enjoy books, these days, such a pity!) xxx 🙂
I changed the whole phrase. I like the sense of power 🙂
I like that the cakes are grinning and self-satisfied. 🙂
I tend to find shop cakes incredibly unappetizing.
I usually do, too.
I hear the silent ‘but’ in there. To be honest, my mouth does water over East European pastries, the cream cheese and raisins, apple and almond type things.
To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I was in a bakery. I bake often, and I like what I bake. I would also be more likely to buy pastries that I don’t make–especially if they also had chocolate in them. 🙂
I used to bake. Everybody baked in my family and never bought anything from the bakery, but husband has no sweet tooth whatsoever, so I stopped.
Yes, it’s much different here when the girls aren’t around. I used to bake cookies a few times a week for them and their friends.
That’s something I’ve learnt from reading American YA books—this homebaked cookie thing for kids when they come home from school.
I don’t know how common it actually is–people are so busy these days–but I actually did do it. My mom always worked outside the home, so she didn’t.
What I always marvel at is the quantity of cookies the kids sit down to eat! They take a whole tray of them up to their room and munch through a dozen or so each. How?
My girls not so much, but their male friends certainly could dozens. So could my husband when he was younger.
Do you? I must try and remember to follow your example. Today I had a thought which has maybe put me off chocolate – for a while, I hope – ‘they only have to put so much sugar in it, because it tastes so bitter, otherwise.’ Think it’ll work?
I don’t know. It probably sounds smug, but I don’t have a thing about chocolate. If I never ate it again, I wouldn’t mind.
I’ll try to follow your example.
I do like a glass (or two) of wine, so maybe you’d rather stick to your own example 🙂
I love the title and how it adds another layer to the story. Fab stuff!
Thanks Sonya! I thought I was going to be stumped with this one since I’m not really a cake person, then the answer hit me 🙂