Samantha

15

The sun rose and everything fell. "Everything" of course meaning all hopes, dreams, and general happy thoughts of all people employed at the mid-sized bread factory Yeasty!
Yeasty! had been, until that point, a fairly successful bread factory producing, ironically, only matzah, the traditional unleavened Jewish bread baked sans yeast. Occasionally, Yeasty! would spit out some communion breads, also made with no yeast. The main and in fact only reason it was fairly successful was because it was the only bread factory producing solely matzo (probably because matzo is kind of gross and eaten purely for religious reasons).
The reason for all the downtrodden-ness of the general public inside that doughy haven was the announcement of the opening of a large-sized bread factory that, too, would only produce matzo. And so, for the first time in Yeasty!'s admittedly short history, it had competition.
Alex sat in her office, doing that thing where her forehead wrinkled like a raisin or some other similar dried fruit because of all the stress. A little information on Alex: she was not exactly the kind of person one would call “adventurous,” “outgoing,” or “the main character in a short story.” She was, for lack of a better word, painfully boring. Her favorite food was rice. Her dream car was a Prius. Her favorite book was the dictionary, and her favorite movie was a six-hour long documentary on washing machines. There were only two things in the world she was passionate about: owning a mid-sized bread factory specializing in matzo production and velvet pantsuits. This had been her dream job ever since she came out of the womb, and she was about to lose it.
The only possible way to save her factory, Alex knew, was to branch out from matzo and communion bread production into something possibly involving actual yeast. The thought tormented Alex so much that she banished it from her mind.
Alex hated change. She had hated it ever since she was in the fifth grade and her gymnastics teacher told her to try the balance beam instead of the bars and she slipped and fell and bruised her derrière so badly her mom had to come and drive her to the emergency room to have it looked at and all of her classmates laughed at her and called her Achy Ass Alex for, like, forever.
No, yeast would never enter Yeasty!, Alex decided. Yeasty! would remain a yeast-free zone as long as she reigned.
Things quickly declined. Alex was forced to lower her employees' pay from a mid-sized salary to minimum wage. She was also forced to diminish her workforce from a mid-sized one to a small-sized one. She could no longer afford to get the gas tank used to power the matzo oven fixed, so occasionally carbon monoxide would leak and cause hallucinations and such.
Finally, after several weeks of this madness, Alex had a vision. An honest-to-God vision. Not a stupid vision, like one of those dreams where she was a gynecologist in New Jersey or something, but a legit vision.
It was a Wednesday. Alex had just been approached by her fifth worker that week encouraging her to branch out. One would think she would seriously consider it, given it was her fifth complaint that week, but Alex had a skin as thick as Fort Adams, or a very calloused water buffalo.
Anyway, she was quite frazzled, and decided to take a walk. She strolled around her factory when a voice from one of her matzo vats sounded.
"Come here, child," it said.
Alex approached the vat. The matzo dough inside slowly formed a face. It smiled at her like a kindly grandfather.
"My child," it said. "You must listen. Right now, you are facing a fork in your road."
"Yes, Grandfather," Alex said in a trance. "I am listening."
"If you continue to make yeastless matzo, you will end up penniless, deeply in debt, and one of those cynical old people that yells at young people, like the neighbor in Dennis the Menace. If you use yeast in your products, then you will-"
"Alex!" yelled a worker suddenly. The matzo face dissolved. "There's been another carbon monoxide leak. It's been causing hallucinati-"
Alex shoved him aside and walked into her office. She had seen a vision! She knew her path!
Except the matzo face had never finished his sentence. Would using yeast have her end up worse than continuing on her current unleavened path?
Whatever. That neighbor in Dennis the Menace was a jerk. It was time she bandaged up her derrière and listened to her employees.
A month later, Yeasty! was the proud producer and distributor of matzo and signature English muffins.
Alex took a deep breath and straightened her brand-new red velvet pantsuit. She was prepared. Today was the day her English muffins would be unveiled. The media were waiting outside her factory to interrogate her about them. If the English muffins were successful, she could raise pay, rehire employees, patch the gas tank, and go back to having a mid-sized bread factory. If they weren't, then she was screwed.
Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.