Before the shutters rise

An original first-person fictional account of an invented early shift in a bakery.

I arrived at twenty past three expecting warmth. Baking, in my experience, belonged to a yellow kitchen, a radio murmuring on a shelf and my grandmother brushing flour from her hands. The bakery workroom was white, brightly lit and cold enough for me to see my breath when the back door opened.

Nia pointed to a tower of empty tins.

“Oil those. Every corner.”

For the next half-hour, I painted metal with a small brush while mixers turned behind me. There were twenty-four tins, each apparently designed to contain one corner more than I could remember. I tried to work faster. Oil ran onto the bench; the brush slipped from my fingers; the tins I had finished became confused with those I had not.

When the first batch came out, one loaf clung stubbornly to its tin. Nia freed it in pieces and showed me a pale, dry patch in the corner.

“That one was yours,” she said, placing the brush back in my hand.

I wanted a long explanation that would make the mistake less entirely mine. None arrived. Around us, trays moved, timers sounded and labels were checked. There was no space in the morning for my defence.

Soon I was weighing flour. The figures on the scale trembled whenever I poured too quickly. A white cloud rose from the bowl, and for one second the room resembled the bakery I had imagined. Then I sneezed across my sleeve and had to wipe down the bench.

As the hours passed, the separate noises began to arrange themselves. A timer sent Nia to the ovens. The scrape of a tray meant I should clear the cooling rack. When the mixer slowed, I brought the next bowl without being asked. I was still following everyone else, but no longer colliding with them.

Shortly before six, Nia gave me a row of small pieces of dough to shape. My first was lopsided. The second carried the dents of all ten fingers. By the eighth, my hands had discovered a movement I could not have explained: turn, fold, cup, release. Eight smooth rounds waited on the tray. I counted them twice.

At the break, Nia handed me the damaged loaf. It had cooled into a crooked shape, with one side missing, but she cut two slices from the middle. The crust cracked loudly beneath the knife.

“Every corner tomorrow,” she said.

Outside, the street was turning grey. My shoulders ached, flour had settled inside my cuffs and the warm slice stung my fingertips. I had been wrong about the bakery. It was not my grandmother's kitchen made larger. It was colder, faster and far less forgiving.

When Nia asked whether I would return the next morning, I said yes before tiredness had time to answer for me.

How does the writer show the narrator's thoughts and feelings about working an early shift in the bakery? Support your answer with references to the passage.