The Last Loaf
最後のひとかたまり
For thirty-seven years, Martha had opened the little bakery on the corner before the sun rose.
Long before the first customer arrived, the smell of warm bread had already filled the narrow street.
Having kneaded since she was a girl, she no longer needed to measure the flour.
Her hands, worn smooth by decades of work, knew the weight of everything by touch.
Henry, her husband, had built the ovens himself the year they were married.
He had passed away one quiet winter, leaving her alone with the shop they had loved.
Still, she kept baking, comforted by the that had shaped her entire life.
Every morning she arranged the loaves exactly as she had done the day before.
Regulars came and went, nodding to her as though she were part of the furniture.
Yet lately the street had changed in ways she had not expected.
A large supermarket had opened nearby, selling bread that cost half of hers.
Customers who had visited for years began to appear less and less often.
Having watched the neighbourhood grow up around her, Martha found the silence unfamiliar.
By noon, trays that had once emptied quickly still held rows of untouched rolls.
She told herself that business had always risen and fallen with the seasons.
Deep down, however, she knew that something more had begun.
Bills that had been easy to pay now sat unopened on the counter.
Her , carefully gathered over many years, had shrunk to almost nothing.
by worry, she sometimes sat alone after closing, staring at the cold ovens.
Henry would have known what to say, she thought, but Henry was gone.
One evening, an old man she had never really spoken to lingered by the door.
He bought a single loaf, the cheapest one, as he had every single day.
Saying nothing, he placed his coins gently on the worn wooden counter.
For a moment their eyes met, and something passed between them.
Then he was gone, leaving Martha alone with the last loaf of the day.
She wrapped it slowly, wondering how many more mornings the bakery had left.