Book 2. Excerpt A.

TOAST

I deserve better than to be forced to document my cruel fate at the hands of a pat of butter. What crime did I ever commit, except bring crispy and golden brown on the outside - bearing the faintest bouquet of carbon - while being tender, fluffy and white, nay, cloudlike, on the inside?

And like I can't see the knife coming my way! If you wanted to scare me, it worked, and ...oh jeez, it's not even butter, it's margarine. Oh dear God, it's not even margarine -it's a spread - housebrand spread, bought from a Costco, at that. That's all I get in the end? Butter-like spread-type bulk-purchased yellow goop? I don't even rate butter? Thanks. Thanks a lot. At least butter is a classy way to go. Even margarine has a certain Volvo cachet.

Well, that's life. During my childhood as a humble slice inside the loaf (four slices in from the front), I once had dreams. Maybe one day, as toast, I would bear an image of Jesus or, if not Jesus, then NASCAR racing legend Dale Earnhardt or, failing that, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Instead, all I display is a golden brown toastiness distributed across my heated surface with about the same degree of randomness as craters on the moon, with a slightly darker browning in my midriff where I bowed slightly towards the toaster's equatorial grill.

I think it's actually mean to trick young bread slices into thinking that they, too, might one day harbour toast faces, let alone be sold on eBay for thousands of dollars and make a wacky news story that goes viral.

Life generally blows. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are far worse ways to go than as toast - croutons and stuffing spring to mind - as well as the worst fate of all: blue mould, followed by a few hasty twists of the bread bag's neck, then you're plunged into the trash and live in an anaerobic limbo until the year AD 327,406, when a glacier scours you out of what was once the local landfill. My fate is to be toast. I suppose that's a small blessing.

Wait - wait - it's almost here, the knife. It's almost ready to dock onto my super-sensitive spot in the dead centre of my - nmghhh... aughGHHH!

Oh!
That was--
That was--
Do it again.
Oh God, they never told us about this, back in the loaf. Jesus, I'm crumbling all over the place.
I don't care.
Mnmmmglumph!
Ahhhhh...

Warm, drizzling rivulets soak my being; molten, swirling, sun-coloured puddles drench my cracked, scabby and burnt skin - my death so near. Already I can sense teeth coming my way, and yet the fear is gone. I feel free! I feel dirty! I feel submissive! I feel...

I feel...
I feel...
... the end.

"The Gum Thief" by Douglas Coupland