Bread

Once upon a time, in a place far, far away, a bottle of Coke was a foreign object, and there was no bakery in our tiny Himalayan town.

That's not entirely true.
There was a bakery.
It wasn't great.

So we got our bread from a shop in the plains, a four-hour drive up and down the mountains.
When the shop had bread, that is.
When we or kith and kin were driving past the shop, that is.

A slice was like paper.
The trick was to stack a few and bite into them, imagining one is eating a cloud.
Or toast them for toast with butter.
Or toast with jam.
Or, when you were really feeling it, toast with butter and jam.

I used to take a couple of slices and hoard them inside my bedside table drawer.
And chew them late at night, listening to rain, thunder, lightning, dogs barking.
Bread never tasted so good.