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AIn any event, we were hungry. No, not quite hungry. It was as if we had swallowed the empty vacuum of space itself. It started off as a little emptiness, about the size of a donut hole, but as the day went on it grew in size, now having become an abyss whose bottom is unknowable. It was a milestone in hunger, complete with a somber soundtrack.

What leads to hunger? A lack of food, of course. What leads to a lack of food? A lack of goods to trade for something of equal value. What leads to a lack of goods to trade for something of equal value? A lack of imagination on our part, probably. No, it might be that our hunger is the cause for our lack of imagination. It doesn’t matter.

God. Marx. John Lennon. They’re all dead. What matters is that we were starving, and as a result we were turning to crime. It isn’t that hunger turned us to crime, it’s that crime had made us hungry and turned to us. I don’t quite get it myself. It’s like existentialism.

“I’m about to snap, man” my friend said. If I had to put it in just a few words, that would be it. Of course, all we had the past two days was water. I tried eating a sunflower leaf, just once, but it wasn’t something I could see myself doing again.

Which is how we found ourselves heading towards the bakery, armed with knives. The bakery was located in the center of the shopping district and was flanked by a futon shop and a store that sold stationary. The owner of the bakery was a balding man in his fifties, and a member of the Communist Party. We walked leisurely towards the shopping district, knives in hand. It was like something out of High Noon. As we walked, the smell of baking bread steadily grew stronger, and the stronger the smell got, the steeper the decline of the ramp to our descent into a life of crime grew. We were excited over attacking a bakery and a communist, and at the same time found something moving in what would be done, like the Hitler Youth.

It was later in the afternoon, so there was only one customer inside the bakery, a slovenly older woman who seemed to be thoroughly inconsiderate. There was something dangerous in the air around this older woman; the best laid plans of criminals are always thwarted by thoroughly inconsiderate older women. At the very least, that’s how it always goes with crimes on TV.

Using my eyes, I signaled to my friend to not do anything until the woman left. I hid the knife behind my back and pretended to choose pastries. She was setting her agepan and melonpan on the tray with about the same deliberateness that someone chooses their clothes and how they’re made up. However, it’s not like she was in a rush to check out. The agepan and melonpan were little more than one theory to her. Or it’s like she was in the far-off North Pole, and needed a bit more time to adapt. The melonpan was the first to lose its place in this theory. The woman, shaking her head like, Why on Earth did I pick something like melonpan? I shouldn’t have done that in the first place. First of all, they’re too sweet…, put the melonpan back on its original tray, and selected two croissants, placing them on her tray. The birth of a new theory. An iceberg shifts ever so slightly, and shafts of spring sunlight begin to shine through.

“Is she really still at it?” my friend muttered in a low voice. “Let’s off the old hag too.”

“Eh, just wait,” I said, stopping him.

The owner wasn’t bothered by this at all, luxuriating in the Wagner playing on a radio cassette. I wasn’t sure if listening to Wagner was proper behavior for a member of the Communist Party .

The woman continued staring at her agepan and croissants. Something is off. Unnatural. Enough to make you think that agepan and croissants must never be side by side. There seem to be conflicting ideologies here, she seemed to be thinking. The tray that held her pastries were shaking like a refrigerator with a broken thermostat. Metaphorically. The tray wasn’t actually shaking, obviously.

“I’m gonna kill her,” my friend said. His hunger, the Wagner, and the air of tension around the old woman had him as delicate as peach fuzz. I shook my head silently.

Regardless, the woman was still wandering around her own Dostoevsky-like hell while holding her tray. First, the agepan stepped up to the rostrum and addressed the citizens of Rome with a speech that could only be described as moving. His wording was beautiful, his rhetoric splendid, his baritone smooth. Everyone gave him a round of applause.

Next was a croissant. He stepped up to the rostrum and gave a meandering address about traffic lights. Stuff like cars that are turning to the left look at the green light in front of them, then turn after checking to see if there are any cars or not. The Romans couldn’t quite understand what he was talking about, but it seemed complicated, so they gave him a round of applause. The croissant got a bit more applause than the agepan. Then the agepan was returned to its shelf. The woman’s tray was now the ultimate in simplistic perfection: two croissants. Then the woman left the store. Now it was our turn.

“We’re really hungry,” I said to the owner. I kept the knife hidden behind my back. “And to make matters worse, we’re flat broke.”

“I see,” the owner said, nodding.

There was a pair of nail clippers resting on the counter, and my friend and I stared a hole in them. The nail clippers were giant, big enough to trim a vulture’s claws. They were probably made as a gag.

“If you’re so hungry, you should eat some bread,” the owner said.

“But we don’t have any money.”

“I heard you the first time,” the owner said in a bored voice. “I don’t need any money so eat whatever you want.”

I glanced at the nail clippers again.

“Listen, we’ve turned to a life of crime.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So we can’t accept the kindness of others.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“I see,” the owner said, nodding once again.

“Well, let’s try this. You guys can eat whatever you want. In return, I’ll put a curse on you guys. How’s that?”

“What kind of curse?”

“Curses are always uncertain. They’re not like a bus schedule.”

My friend butted in. “Wait, hold on. I don’t wanna get cursed. I’ll just kill you, quick and easy.”

“Now wait just a minute,” said the owner. “I don’t want to get killed.”

“I don’t wanna get cursed,” said my friend.

“But we need some kind of exchange here,” I said.

For a while, we stared intently at the nail clippers in silence.

The owner opened his mouth. “How about this. Do you guys like Wagner?”

“No,” I said.

“Nah,” said my friend.

“If you grow to like him for me, I’ll let you eat bread.”

He was like a missionary of the Dark Continent, but we were on board. At any rate, it was far better than being cursed.

“I love it,” I said.

“Yeah, this is great,” said my friend.

We stuffed our bellies with pastries while listening to Wagner.

“One of the brilliant, shining works of musical history, Tristan und Isolde, which was first unveiled in 1859, is an important work that is vital for understanding Wagner’s later period,” the owner said, reading from a commentary.

Munch munch. Chew chew.

“Tristen, nephew to the King of Cornwall, goes to retrieve his uncle’s betrothed, Princess Isolde, but they fall in love on the boat back home. The beautiful cello and oboe that appear at the beginning of this work are the motif of this pair’s love.”

Two hours later, bellies completely full, my friend and I left.

“Let’s listen to Tannhäuser tomorrow!” the owner had said.

By the time we had arrived home, the emptiness within us had vanished completely. Our imaginations had slowly begun to stir, like they were rolling down the gentle slope of a hill.