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Flash fiction · From the Margen catalogue

The labour inspector walks into the bakery at 4:50

"Labour Inspectorate. Amaia Berruezo. Are you the owner?" "Onésimo Gastón, master baker. Forty-one years in this bakehouse." "I have two people registered and I'm looking at three of them kneading." "The third one is my mother." "Does your mother work here?" "My mother is seventy-nine and she doesn't sleep. She gets up at four, walks over and gets to work." "Gets to work at what?" "Kneading. She has been kneading in this house since sixty-eight. If I tell her to stay in bed, she stays in bed and never gets up again." "Mr Gastón, I cannot put that in a report." "I know." "I can put down that there were two workers and a lady who came in to buy bread." "She did come in to buy bread." "Then tell her to let go of that dough before I turn round." "Mother, let go of the dough." "I will not, Onésimo, if I let go now it comes out raw."