Work Cake

She rolls the cake in.

The room relaxes.


We wait with our plates and expectant mouths.

I feel guilty for not bringing cakes, bad etiquette on my part. Office time is measured in cakes: birthday cakes, wedding cakes, coma cakes, house and new husband cakes, goodbye so long old chap retirement cakes, departmental changing cakes, rebranding and returning cakes, end of the financial year cakes, change of building cakes, charity cakes for good causes. There was the starting cakes and the leaving cakes, the Friday cakes, sometimes lavish cakes, leftover cheap cakes languishing in store cupboards, round and robust cakes wriggling whilst we plunge in the knife and stand there waiting.

The waiting is what we were after.
Waiting means not working.