The employee bathroom, with its rainbow chemical spigots and collection of soiled mops, was determined to be the only safe space. Since we had no idea how long the storm might last, someone grabbed the dead rack and pushed it along ahead of us, the trays of misshapen pastries clanging and rattling across the uneven floor. I took one last look out the windows – the clouds were swirling, shoving, fighting amongst themselves.

My boss claimed the toilet for herself, and the rest of us settled down onto the floor. From her spot beside the water heater, Amanda began to cry. Her cat had recently died, and any little thing could set her off. We were a rather neurotic group in general – Hana panicked in every rush, Jordan barked at anyone who didn’t fight back, Kyle took self-care time with abandon. There were tears in the frosting on a good day.

Morgan said we needed a way to pass the time and rearranged us into a circle on the floor. She had spent a few years as a kindergarten teacher, and it showed. She started to tell a story about the sports bar next door, one where they admitted to causing the leak beneath our flour shelves; it was actually Miller Lite. Someone pulled the mop bucket into the middle of our circle like a campfire, and we nibbled on the day’s mistakes – crushed cruffins, fugly muffins, strawberry cupcakes that came out caucasian beige. Chocolate chip cookies the size of moons and next week’s specials, which we weren’t yet allowed to name.

We went around the circle, telling stories to pass the time. Ideas that had long been living in our heads, things we weren’t sure if we’d dreamed. A depressed rat mascot living in the catering fridge, an endorsement from Willy Wonka himself. A woman who requested free treats for her grandmother’s funeral – the 113 grandchildren needed something to eat. Tiny gremlins who broke our frosting spatulas in the night, breathing in too much pectin and feeling your organs turn to jam. We suspended our disbelief, cocooned ourselves in a moment outside of time, pooling into one another – heads resting on shoulders, knees knocking against knees. We focused on the good, what we wanted to believe the future held. An embrace from a mother long absent, spouses who loved unconditionally, customers treating us with basic human respect. Living wages, fairy godmothers, pet bunnies that healed our every pain. An army of golden retrievers, sent by God to set us free. Outside, the sky cracked like firecrackers, like a symphony welcoming us to the beyond.

We woke to a pounding on the door, a new state of understanding. We unpretzeled our bodies, skin sticking like fresh dough, stretched and blinked the crust from our eyes. My boss pulled herself up from the floor and opened the door to our franchise owner. Her collared company shirt was smudged with earth, and her hair was tangled, wild. She’d been going around to every store, checking up on the employees. Only we had hid in the bathroom. Things had gotten pretty bad out there, and there was certainly damage, but the storm itself had passed. So we said our goodbyes, agreed we’d see each other whenever the world had reassembled itself. The owner assured us it would be soon. There were tears swiped quickly from eyes, awkward half-attempted hugs. Kyle took what was left on the dead rack and rolled it out to the dumpster.

One of the storefront windows was gone, shattered by a branch now lying on the floor. I crunched across the glittering crystal and stepped directly through the opening, out into the sun. In the parking lot, my car was covered with leaves and twigs, a gentle coating of forest. I drove back through a landscape changed, rearranged, most everything closer or farther away than before, all the colors made more noticeable by their new positions. A world made anew. When I finally got home, I almost didn’t recognize it. I went inside and began to dream.