Cake

Flash Fiction

The cake was pink again this year because most of the July birthdays happened to be women.

Vera shrugged. Looked like it was a pretty decent cake.

The TrolleyCar had a tradition of celebrating all birthdays once a month.

This year, the last Saturday happened to fall on Vera’s real birthday.

She didn’t make a fuss about it, but it gnawed at her a little. 

Her afternoon crew from Simkins Packing was there, as well as some of the hardcore drinkers from first shift, plus the regulars from Algers Metals and a few people from the distillery.

People talked about horoscopes a lot on birthday party day.

Vera humored them even though she didn’t believe, just like she humored the people who thought her three-forty corrugateds were gonna get phased out and everyone who wasn’t laid off would get moved to the five-ninety styros.

Vera hated confrontation, controversy. But she sure wished everyone was celebrating just her birthday.

A bachelorette party stumbled in, all glowing dick necklaces and smeared lipstick.

“There’s a guy out there losing his mind,” one of ‘em said, “He told us the whole world is on fire.”

Vera smiled reassuringly at the young woman. 

“Loki,” Vera said. “He’s harmless.”

“He almost touched me,” said another. 

Vera raised her eyebrows but wasn’t going to press the issue.

She didn’t want cake but the thought of the bachelorette party helping themselves to cake bothered her.

She was cradling the paper plate with the gold party hats on it, staring at the neon pink frosting when she heard one of the women tell Petey that there was a guy out front losing his mind.

“He’s harmless, “ Petey told the woman, who retorted something in a fast, slurred slush of words that Vera tuned out.

One pinkie dip of acrylic nail into the frosting, she knew for sure she didn’t want cake but didn’t want to waste it.

Out the door of The Trolley she went to find Loki.

He leaned against an old-fashioned coin parking meter in front of the wig store, as the new digital meters down the block blinked their LED  lights.

“Loki?” 

Loki turned. There was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, though Vera was certain he didn’t know her name, just her face after fifteen years of coming to the Trolley.

“We gotta get out of here,” he said, “the world is on fire.”

“Would you like some birthday cake?”

Vera knew Loki liked beef jerky and those oversized hot pickles that came in the plastic pouch.

“No, no cake,” Loki said. “I got diabetics.”

Vera smiled sweetly, heartened that he knew some basic self-care.

“We gotta get out of here,” he said again. “The world is on fire and the water’s rising and the scriptures don’t know what to do.”

“If you had a chance to get out of here, Loki, where would you go?”

Loki froze and cast a look at Vera like he felt desperately sorry for her for not knowing the answer.

“Up north, of course. Up north.”

Vera’s head turned to her right, instinctively, looking up Walesa to the north.

Her head scanned back south, past Loki. The purple glow of a Lyft sign was in a minivan in front of the Dollar and Mor.

“Would you like to go up north with me, Loki?”

A mist of confusion swirled in front of Loki’s eyes. He tugged at the waistband of his tan corduroy pants then looked back up at Vera.

“I’ll take you up north, Loki. Not all the way, but we can go where the world is...less on fire.”

Loki bobbed his head up and down. It seemed to Vera that Loki understood he was getting his wish.

Vera waved at the minivan. It pulled through a yellow light at Westbrook and veered over to their side of the street.

She set her cake in the middle of the sidewalk, gently clutched Loki’s elbow, and they got into the vehicle.

***

Photo by Valentin Lacoste on Unsplash