08/05/2026 par Rx Bodo

Leftovers

They’ve just been brought from the kitchen. Now, they’re on display, on the counter. I can’t see them from here, but I can smell them all right. They’re still hot. My mouth waters. I take a step forward with a little whine. The boss hears me. He hushes me straight away and points towards the back of the coffee shop. I stifle my hopes and obey.

Freshly baked baklavas smell like heaven. But they feel like hell to the stomach when you can’t have any. I crave their crisp, flaky filo pastry, filled with crunchy nuts and sweetened with warm honey syrup. The boss’s wife is a master baklava baker. Every batch she takes out of the oven is a promise of bliss. Unfortunately, this promise can’t be fulfilled any more.

Now, the family’s pastries are kept exclusively for the customers. They can be eaten in the shop, with tea or coffee, or taken home, in a small parcel tied with a pretty, blue ribbon. In Highbury, where we’re located, people are willing to pay good money for our homemade delicacy. In a way, it’s a good thing: more cash for the family and less work for me.

When the shop was in Sultangazi, things worked differently. The pastries weren’t sold in blue-ribboned parcels but wrapped in the pages of the local newspaper. They were much cheaper too, for baklavas are common over there. Still, some customers were reluctant to pay. I dissuaded the thieves by snarling at them. So, more work for me, less profit for the family, but a reasonably high percentage of leftovers.

Although moving here has improved our standard of living, it hasn’t made us any happier. Too many baklavas are needed to run the business. There’s no time left for singing, playing and laughing in the shop. The boss’s wife slaves her guts out in the kitchen. Their daughter runs like a headless chicken to attend to the customers. And the boss is worried sick behind the till, complaining about the bills.

Not later than this morning, I heard him telling the others that he was considering selling paninis. I was sitting by his side when he said it. His wife and daughter protested that they weren’t experts on preparing sandwiches, and that nobody would want to buy any. But he said that he would find a way. Personally, I believed him. I even wagged my tail to the good news. If the clients refuse to pay for our paninis, I will snarl at them, and there will be some leftovers for me.