It's the dishes that always get me. A sense of impending doom hanging over me, like a paraplegic watching a pot of pasta boil over, helpless in the face of approaching disaster.

Five minutes becomes half an hour, and next time I look up, two hours have passed. And still the dishes sit, patiently, stubbornly, waiting.

I have two choices. It's either sit here until my eyes bleed and the sandman comes despite me, to send me off to sleep.

Or get up, leave this addiction, and tackle the dishes. Armed with only soap and rubber gloves.

Tonight, I have decided, will be the latter.

Mummy will be proud.

Sadly, it began with the end.

Most do.

Occasionally of course, you get the ones that begin about a third of the way through. But the smell of cheap cologne always ruins them.

The end was messy, as ends are wont to be. There were too many people watching, and not enough caring.

Oil glazed the motorbike helmet, making it look like a shiny hot cross bun that’d had all the raisins picked out by a raisin hater. And then been burnt.

A shattered headlight lay in the gutter, twisted metal kissing shards of glass.

A toddler screamed in delight as the back tyre broke free, bouncing down the road, skittering through fallen leaves, headed toward the distant rain clouds. Tires are happiest when they’re wet.

The other tyre lay still, still anchored to the bikes body, mourning its twin. It knew it would never feel the sweet skid of a slippery corner again, never charge through a puddle and watch the water fan out behind it in a rough display of giddy power.

She stood staring at the mangled remains of her Yamaha. Once shiny crimson, now a bruised and empty shell.

A tear ran unnoticed down her face, dancing down to the left to caress her cheekbone.

And still the tyre rolled on. Alone. Half of what it should have been. But free.

An Apology of The Log

Of course, there had to be a cake.

Any other job, and the cake wouldn't have mattered. But she was determined to show them that even if she was starting out as a lowly bakers apprentice, she could still bake a cake they wouldn't forget.

Now, obviously it couldn't be a banana cake. Fruit of any kind was out. It gave the wrong impression. Fruitcake was too Christmassy. You could never find an icing that matched a spice cake. Even carrot had the wrong feel to it. She didn't want a cake that should be eaten in the daytime. This cake would not be eaten with a cup of tea. This was no coffee cake. This cake was to stand on its own. Everyones eyes had to be riveted upon the cake, from the very moment it was laid upon the table until the very last crumb had been eaten.

This was not to be a second portion cake.

This was, at the very least, a third portion cake.

After many a long hour spent gazing into the distance, pondering the possibility of inventing a peanut brittle cake, she decided to take the safe way out. It had to be chocolate. Nobody could turn their nose up at a chocolate cake. There was really no other choice.

It had turned out brilliantly. The sponge had risen to perfection - not too high, but with enough air that one could just see the tiny holes that had filled the mixture, turning it from wet concrete to a soft cloud. She had filled it with toffee cream, spiked with brandy. Then she rolled the long layers around each other, spiraling around like a snail shell. And there it lay, a perfect cylinder. A perfectly baked, perfectly iced chocolate log. Maria gazed at her beautiful cake, a flush of pride welling up inside her. With a sigh of contentment, she placed the cake carefully upon a shelf to wait for dessert.

It was twenty three minutes past eight. Everyone was waiting. Maria excused herself, almost skipping into the kitchen. Finally, she would prove to them that she was going to be more than just a bakers apprentice. She would show them that she too had the talent to create beautiful pastries, delectable desserts. She opened the pantry door, switching on the light. But all it illuminated were the stacked tins, the jars of flour and sugar and dessicated coconut. Her beautiful cake, that she had placed so carefully just hours before on that very shelf, had gone. With a sick panic rising in her throat, Maria caught sight of a shiny brown slick of chocolate, halfway down the pantry wall. She slowly followed it down, past the dried herbs, past the stacked plates, to the floor.

Alas, no longer was it light and fluffy. No longer did it shine with silky chocolate, tenderly iced.

Now longer did it call to be eaten. One could hardy even call it a cake anymore.

And there, lying like an obese man trying to do a dive and instead bellyflopping with a painful slap upon the water, lay her cake.

A sad, sorry chocolate log.