12/18/52

The loaf felt soft in his hand. Not soft and soggy like the stale bread crusts he had eaten all his life became when it rained—it was warm, and fresh. And the smell! It was the same smell that had made his stomach rumble every time he walked down the alley behind the tavern’s bakery—but now he experienced it a completely different way, knowing that the sweet smell was his, that he would sink his teeth into that warm, soft loaf. He looked behind him with a fearful grimace, but wild and delighted. No one in the busy street was looking at him. He reached up and over an edge in the wall, an edge he was too short to see but which his fingers knew perfectly—and he swung himself onto the tavern’s roof.