One Last Bite of May

Today was Friday. But not just any Friday. It was the Friday Karla had been counting down to draining the life out of her one caffeine-fueled night at a time.

Currently, the classroom was silent except for the soft scratch of pencils and the occasional sniffle from someone four seats back. Sunlight spilled through the tall windows, warm and lazy, the kind that made you think of open windows and early summer instead of scantrons and existential dread.

Karla hunched over her exam booklet as her mind wandered.

Her hand flowed through the pages like water.

It flew across the page with confident strokes, circling answers before her brain fully registered the question. She had studied for exam week in advance using all the flashcards and practice problems she prepared. Still, her focus wavered. Behind every blink she saw a brioche bun, golden and glossy, faintly crackled at the edges. Freshly fried chicken cutlet, peppered with just the right seasoning, nestled between crisp romaine leaves slick with Caesar parmesan.

A thin thread of anxiety tugged at her thoughts. “Limited time only,” her brain reminded her, unhelpfully. To welcome the summer months, her favorite street shipowner, Summer’s Market, ran a May-only special each year. One new menu item that would never return again.

Her stomach growled, loud enough that the student seated diagonally from her glanced over. Karla pressed her lips together to keep from drooling and kept writing.

Leading into exam season, Karla had made a deal with herself that if she studied diligently and pulled straight A’s, she’d finally let herself buy the seasonal Chicken Caesar Brioche Bun from the small but popular cafe she passed every day on her walk home.

Karla shaded in the final bubble only needing 30 minutes of a full hour to complete her final exam. Her chair screeched as she stood up abruptly, slammed her exam on the professor’s desk with a satisfied thump and was out the door before he could even look up.

Karla moved fast as she weaved through the bodies in the bustling hallways. She heard wisps of groans, laughter, and sighs of relief from others who were still in the midst or just finished their last exam.

“Karla! Did you just finish your exam? How was it?” An old friend caught her off guard.

Karla smiled, even as she angled her feet toward the exit. “It was a piece of cake!” she said, nodding a little too enthusiastically as she continued inching forward.

Her friend kept talking as Karla kept walking. Every question or comment was met with a polite answer delivered mid-step. However, eventually, Karla did have to spend five or so minutes talking to her friend who didn’t catch on to the hint. She could practically feel the seconds slipping through her fingers like sand. Eventually, she found her opening. She laughed, waved, and offered one last “I’ll text you!” and slipped away as gracefully as she could manage before breaking into a full bolt the moment she was free.

Karla raced down the sidewalk and rounded the corner until Summer’s Market was in view. As she got closer, she read the sign as well: SOLD OUT in bold, merciless, and unapologetic letters.

Karla stared at the sign in a lost daze. Any normal person might sigh, curse under their breath, accept defeat. Not Karla. She exhaled slowly, reached up, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“This counts,” she muttered.

See, Karla has the secret ability to rewind time. She promised herself that she would not use it for anything foolish. Only in cases of emergencies. And this was indeed an emergency.

Before Karla could blink, she was back inside the hallway of the school building. Knowing what her future held, she took a different route through the hallway to avoid her chatty friend entirely.

She practically sprinted out of the building until she once again came upon Summer’s Market.

This time, instead of a dastardly sign, there was a line. Karla didn’t mind as it was a relatively short line of seven people. She stood behind the last person and waited as the delicious aroma of buttered brioche buns filled the air. The crispy sounds of the shop owner wrapping a crispy sandwich in wax paper was just as enticing.

“You’re very lucky. This is officially the last Chicken Caesar,” he said cheerfully to the customer in front of her.

And just like in the original timeline, the sign once again flipped to show the wicked words: SOLD OUT.

Karla screamed internally. And once again, time was rewinded. And once again, Karla raced even faster to the cafe but this time dodging more people who weren’t there originally. There was more traffic as well. Sadly, by the time she arrived, the all too familiar sign was out in front again.

“Ok, let’s try this again,” Karla thought to herself as she tried to keep herself from releasing a wild scream into the public.

This time, Karla found herself right in front of the cafe right on time. Right on time to witness three masked idiots burst into the cafe hassling the shopkeeper to hand over all the coveted sandwiches. And once again, all the sandwiches had been taken.

Karla stared once again, “…You’ve got to be kidding me,” she thought to herself with her palm over her forehead.

Each rewind made things a bit stranger. A parade detour. A flash mob. A dog stealing the shop owner’s hat. By the time Karla finally stood at the counter, sandwich in hand, victorious at last, she paused in disbelief, half-expecting reality to glitch again.

She held the warm and soft sandwich a bit tightly in her hands not risking anything to happen to it.

As she left the store, two stray dogs just so happened to be sitting right in front of the only entrance. A thin mother and a much smaller puppy pressed close to her side. Both stared at the sandwich with unblinking focus as the puppy’s rehearsed whimpering was heard softly but audibly.

She sighed, already knowing how this would end. Karla crouched, tore the sandwich in half, then again. She set the pieces down carefully and stepped back. The dogs devoured it like it was the best thing that had ever happened to them. The mother dog looked up at her, tail finally wagging. Karla smiled, stood, and walked home with empty hands and the strange, sinking feeling that the universe had won again.

Karla trudged home as she realized her exhaustion was finally catching up to her. She slipped off her shoes after entering through the front door and started heading toward her room with her eyes already stinging.

“Hey, Karla?” a voice called from the kitchen “Come here, real quick”

“I’m tired,” she said, wiping her face.

“Just come.”

She did.

On the counter sat a familiar wax-paper bundle.

“I saw this in the neighborhood and thought you’d like it,” her mother handed her the sandwich. “A lot of people were crowding around that popular cafe so I stopped by while I was in the area. You’ve been working really hard recently, so let’s celebrate with this for dinner.”

Karla started laughing which turned into tears as she hugged her mom. She bit into the sandwich which tasted even better than she could have imagined.