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Sisyphean Attempts at Self-Improvement #1100472 added October 30, 2025 at 4:15pm
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Alive
The sourdough starter had been in the Kemp family for six generations.
"Feed it every day," Grandma Kemp insisted from her hospice bed, pressing the jar into Sandra's hands. "Never miss a day. Promise me."
Sandra promised. It seemed a small thing to do for a dying woman.
The starter looked innocent enough: beige, bubbling, smelling of yeast and tang. Sandra followed the instructions written in her grandmother's shaky hand: one cup flour, one cup water, stir clockwise three times, counter-clockwise once.
"Why the specific stirring pattern?" she'd asked.
"It's always been done that way," Grandma whispered. "Don't change it."
After the funeral, Sandra maintained the ritual. Every morning at 7 AM, she fed the starter. It bubbled happily, doubling in size within hours, more active than any sourdough she'd ever seen.
She baked bread with it. The best she'd ever tasted. Complex, deep, almost meaty in its richness. Her husband devoured three slices at dinner.
"This is incredible. What's your secret?"
"Grandma's starter. Six generations old."
That night, Sandra woke to a sound from the kitchen. A wet, rhythmic noise. Like breathing.
She found the starter jar on the counter, though she distinctly remembered placing it in the fridge. It had tripled in size, pressing against the lid, pulsing with a rhythm that had nothing to do with fermentation.
She put it back in the fridge and secured the door with a chair. Silly, but it made her feel better.
The next morning, the chair had moved.
Sandra opened the fridge. The starter had consumed everything else—absorbed the milk, the leftovers, the vegetables. The jar was empty, but the entire fridge interior was coated with starter, undulating like a single organism.
She slammed the door shut.
Her husband entered the kitchen, yawning. "Morning. Hey, did you already feed it?"
"Feed what?"
"The starter. It's moving day, isn't it?"
"Moving day?"
He turned to her, and his eyes were wrong. Clouded, like frosted glass.
"Every six generations, it needs a new home. Grandma knew. That's why she gave it to you."
"Tom, you're scaring me."
"It's been feeding us," he continued, voice flat. "Now it needs to feed. Properly."
Sandra backed toward the door, but Tom was faster. He grabbed her wrist, his grip impossibly strong.
"It likes you," he said. "It's been tasting you through the bread. Every crumb you ate was it learning your chemistry."
The fridge door creaked open on its own. The starter oozed out, moving against gravity, reaching toward her with pseudopods of living dough.
"Grandma lived to ninety-three," Tom said as the starter touched Sandra's skin. "Never sick a day. The starter kept her alive. Kept all of them alive. You just have to let it in."
Sandra tried to scream as the starter began spreading up her arm, warm and pulsing. She could feel it thinking—ancient, hungry, patient.
"It's alive," Tom said, almost reverently. "It's always been alive."
Sandra's vision went white as the starter reached her face. The last thing she heard was her own voice, though she hadn't spoken:
"Feed it every day. Never miss a day."
And thus six generations became seven.
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522 words
PROMPT: “It’s alive!” — from Frankenstein (1931)
Written for ""13" (2025 Ed) - CLOSED"  |
© Copyright 2025 Jeff (UN: jeff at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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