August 4th marks my anniversary in this city. With each successive party the invitations become more elaborate, and since this year got organised on Facebook, I’m reproducing the text here for longevity. Also with the punchline image positioned in the right place as originally intended. Some pictures were taken, too.

Next year I think I’ll need to have more parties to encourage deeper character development. That, or Games Night emails are going to get pretty tedious for all involved.

“Dank.” Robin had never seen that word used to describe a personality before, lest of all his own. “Moribund” seemed more appropriate. In school reports, his teachers just wrote “conscious.” Each year, his parents would feign delight at his thorough and dutiful attitude. They never did read very well.

He was reading the note left for him on the kitchen table by a woman he was certain he’d paid to have breakfast with him. He hoped she’d popped out to buy bread. He always needed bread. There was never any; not legally. The last loaf had evolved enough to be recognised as an entirely new organism, waged a short and successful civil rights campaign, was married is Massachusetts, divorced, and with new finances purchased a pair of ironically thick-rimmed glasses to successfully audition as a comedian for that third BBC television channel. Robin had been looking forward to the inevitable autobiography, relishing the bread’s recollection of his early life sat upon Robin’s counter-top. Of course, the book would never come. Bread, however evolved, lacks the appendages to write, and no-one watching BBC3 can read.

Fresh bread would be brilliant, Robin was certain. Possessing something soft he could probably go some way to soaking up all this blood. Through muddled senses, the source of the bleeding was unclear, but it was certainly related to the broken glass littering his living room.

In a scattershot pastiche of every movie dream sequence you’ve seen recently, it began to dawn on Robin that perhaps his perception was askew. Certainly he didn’t recall loaning that girl any money, which almost certainly meant she wouldn’t be able to pay for the bread. He’d surely have noticed if her hotpants had pockets to carry cash? She’d come back to the slowly focusing detritus of Robin’s apartment without any bread, or more likely some opportunistic blaggard would meet her in the queue, strike up a conversation and they’d end up sharing bagels together. Hot, steaming bagels. Robin would never see her again, he knew it.

If only he had some bread. Picking discarded flyer from the bloodstained carpet, Robin squinted to read. Disappointingly it was not the telephone number for an alternative woman, or alternative bakery. Far from it. Falling to his knees—blood loss now counteracting his growing sobriety—he held in his hand a glimmer of another life. How entirely different it all would be if an invitation like this were extended to him. This, most likely, was the path of finer baked goods, with all of the requisite luxurious accompaniments and company. “Surely,” Robin thought, wide eyed and anxious, “the women I meet here will have loyalty credit at a patisserie?”