Bread
By: Karsol
“Hello?”
A crisp voice rang from the other end of the phone. Mika could recognize the voice immediately, like an owl’s eyes appearing in the middle of the night.
“Hey…” Mika spoke through his phone’s microphone, his cheek sandwiching the phone to his shoulder as he gently stirred the chowder in his stockpot. “Are you still commuting home?”
“Yeah, there’s a massive lack of jeeps going to Sucat, so I may take a bit longer than usual.”
Mika did not hear Ari’s voice the whole day. Yet, he could perceive a somewhat convincing simulacrum of it: the color of their vowels, the carefree transitions through each alluring phoneme, and the rich and thick honey flowing into his ears. It was a voice that brought a breathy sigh after a few moments of idle waiting, and those nineteen words gracing the rim of his ear were more than enough to make his shoulders loose and limp.
“Alright,” Mika said, twirling the strap of his apron. “Would you like me to prepare anything before you arrive?”
“Sure. I like the soup we had last night… but I want something more.”
“I — ” Mika lost his grip on the ladle. He could hear the lightness of Ari’s voice, a dance around the syllables, like they were stuck picking a specific drink from the Starbucks menu. He couldn’t put his finger on what they wanted to relay through, but he held his tone straight and continued. “I’m actually planning on pairing the clam chowder with the sourdough bread I bought a few days ago. Do you want last night’s chowder with that?”
“Yeah, some of your sourdough would be lovely.”
The chowder’s swirling in the pot hastened considerably.
He chuckled. “Alright… I-I guess I’ll get to making that, then.”
“Yeah,” Ari replied, the microphone picking up the grainy sounds of their exhale. “I’ll see you then.”
“Love you.”
“You too.”
Mika heard the line from the other end drop. His hands struggled to settle the phone on the table and he turned the stove off. The chowder’s scent thickened the air with its fragrance.
All that’s left is to get the sourdough ready.
