Baguette in hand and on my way home, I decided to cut down a small alley in the hopes that it was a shortcut. It was sunny, and I was looking forward to a lunch of a fresh baguette, some chorizo, and some of Paris’s finest cheeses.
I was thinking the happy thoughts of a man in possession of fresh baked goods.
We spotted each other at the same time - he at the opposite end of the alley, the bright sunlight casting his long shadow forward.
He, too, had a baguette.
We both knew what was to be done. It was unstoppable, like the pull of moon or that X-man, Juggernaut.
Baguette duel.
The fight was short but brutal. He was of a newer school, Brutal Unleavened Rye, while I favoured a more traditional style, Mauling Angry Wholewheat. He was young but inexperienced. I was, only briefly, sorry that I would have to kill him.
20 bloody minutes later I staggered to the alley’s exit, victorious but cut deep.
Cut too damn deep.
I collapsed in front of an pair of American tourists.
“My god, are you alright?” the wife said, kneeling.
“Someone call 911!” the husband shouted.
I feebly gestured them closer. My blood pooled slowly on the cobblestones.
“Don’t worry, son, there’s a doctor on the way,” the wife assured me.
“C….ca…” I whispered, my trembling hand clutching my blood-spattered bread-weapon.
“What? What do you need, son? Anything.”
“Do you… have any camembert?” I whispered.
