Feast Upon Thy Bread

It wasn’t long before the boy discovered a city. He was a few days older and a few inches taller when he had first started experiencing these intense pangs of abdominal pain—not like getting kicked or being frostbitten. It was more of an aching sensation. And then his stomach growled so loudly he knew…

It was hunger.

What he’d initially thought of as being his first sunrise turned out to be an incredibly large but brightly lit city just beyond the rooftops of the run-down motel. Seeing that in the distance, common sense told him to follow that light. There was probably food over there. To satiate his hunger, he needed to find a source of sustenance. Restaurants, food stands, anything to fill that emptiness inside.

He picked up a torn bed sheet from the desolate curbside and wrapped it around for warmth. Then he made his way towards the towering skyscrapers with only the thoughts of food on his mind.

After having trailed through the outskirts of the city, he finally saw a source of sustenance—an old, almost decrepit bakery that didn’t seem to match at all with the highly technological appearance of all the other buildings. Perhaps it was a part of an older foundation that hadn’t yet been renovated?

Of course, that didn’t matter. What did matter was that he was immediately met with an unknown, human obstruction.

There, standing between him and the bakery was a woman. She was dressed in a flashing, fluorescent vest with a large question mark imprinted on the front. It was severely odd. Her attire reminded him of an information desk receptionist but with a tacky fashion sense.

As people behind her were busily shuffling through the sparse city streets, the woman simply stood there. It was absolutely menacing the way she silently rested her hands over her stomach. She didn’t even twitch. Not even a single bat of an eye. Oddly, he felt more invisible here than at the motel.

Except for her clothes that occasionally flashed like delayed metronome beats during an orchestral rehearsal, she never once did move during the time he was analyzing her. He walked up closer, but she still didn’t seem to notice. Another unrealistic thought surfaced in his mind—

Am I invisible?

Of course not. He knew that wasn’t true. If it was, those vicious thugs wouldn’t have pummeled him to the ground like that. But instead of confirming the lack of common sense in his previous thought, he decided to test the theory out—he walked past the human obstruction.

She didn’t move. The theory actually seemed to hold true. But before he could rejoice, he smacked face first into something solid.

The pain wasn’t bad, but he backed off in surprise. At first, he didn’t notice anything in front of him. Nothing was there. Then he reached out, and he realized that wasn’t true. Something was there. Something hard and sleek. It was flat. Smooth as ice but not too cold to touch.

A glass wall? But it didn’t feel like glass. It was more… intangible? He pondered for a moment, rummaging through his inner records. Then what is it? A force field? According to his records, that wasn’t tech that should’ve existed.

He pushed a little harder on the wall, and it started glowing dull pink around the points of pressure. Then he felt an abrupt chill run down his spine. As if somebody was watching. He glanced over his shoulders and saw the woman had shifted herself in his direction. Her wide, unblinking eyes stared at his every move.

Suddenly, the boy was feeling a lot less invisible than before. He instinctively tried to back up, but he was pushed up against the invisible wall.

The woman then spoke, “Access denied. Move back.”

Access? Common sense dictated that that this wall wasn’t something he could simply bypass with physical force. But his stomach was still growling. He was absolutely famished. In a flash of haste, he grabbed the woman’s sleeve.

“Please let me in,” he begged.

“Access denied,” she repeated. “No identification.”

It almost didn’t sound human the way she spoke. But he didn’t care about that. He wanted food. Just a small slice of bread on the other side of that invisible wall. He could even see it. The rows of pastry and sweet, fruity cakes.

“Please…” He pulled harder. Saliva had already started to dot the asphalt below. His stomach kept growling louder and louder, ringing in his ears like old television static. The sound engulfed his mind, and all he could think about was that loaf of bread.

“Warning. Force imminent.”

Force?

And before he could react, she violently shoved the boy to the ground. He recoiled in fear of another attack, but as if nothing had happened, she marched back to her original spot, seemingly more invested in standing still than anything else.

The sight was baffling to the boy. How could she act so cold? It was common sense to have empathy, was it not? But the incident at the motel triggered in his mind, and he realized that perhaps empathy was not common sense after all.

It was just a byproduct of the weak.

Overwhelmed with a sudden surplus of intense emotions, he brushed aside any nonexistent dust from his dirty linen wraps and readied his hands.

I’m not weak, he told himself. He was going to push through with all his might. He was going to get that bread no matter what. And with bated breath, he waited for the right moment. Just when she had turned away…

Now!

He rushed forward and slammed his tiny torso against the invisible barrier. It lit up. A red outline shined in an alarmingly threatening glare. The people across the wall started to notice his presence.

His arms burned; his muscles ached. The woman started to turn. But he kept up his hands and pushed. He was going to get through. No matter what.

Suddenly, cracks started to form at the edge of his fingers, funneling out into fractal webs. Lines started to stretch across the clear surface. They continued to spread. Farther and farther until…

It shattered.

The wall exploded into a million pieces. Shards flew past his eyes, scattering in every which way. But the only thing on his mind was…

Bread!