That’s Just the Way the Jaffa Cake Crumbles

Date: 11/22/2025

I’m in a decrepit old house I don’t recognise. The ceiling sags and weeps in slow, swollen drops. Strips of wallpaper curl down the walls, peeling away like they’re trying to escape. The air is thick with the scent of damp wood and forgotten stories — an eerie quiet held together by rot and resignation. And I’m tired. Bone-scraped tired. The kind of exhaustion that turns your skull into a humming bowl. All I want is a place I can curl up and disappear for a bit. But there’s a sound following me. A soft, wheezing exhale — air deflating in short, poetic bursts. Almost musical. A haunted-air melody, breath blown through invisible lips. I know the tune. Or I should. It’s like a memory skulking behind a curtain, refusing to show its face. I wander through the dark hallways — long, looping tunnels that stretch like they’re trying to outrun me. The house feels alive. Or at least recently deceased. The sound pulls me outside. I push open the back door, and there in the pitch-black garden, under a scatter of cold stars, my son and his friends are wriggling on inflatable mattresses like ecstatic earthworms, pumping out that weird, breathy melody with pure body weight. “This is ridiculous!” I declare. And then— a punch straight to the gut. “I must be dreaming!” The clarity hits like cold water. I run back inside shouting, “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” because apparently lucidity turns me into a malfunctioning house alarm. In the hallway, I crash straight into Mat. I tell him the good news. He looks at me like I’ve misplaced my sanity in the cutlery drawer. “You’re not dreaming,” he insists. But I know lucidity when it slaps me across the face and calls me Susan. I am lucid. Together, we explore the house — its endless turns, dead-end corridors, all leading to more corridors. No rooms. No logic. Just a labyrinth designed by an architect who clearly despised humanity. I think, The world is my oyster. I can go anywhere. Be anything. But my eyelids feel like sandbags. Lucidity isn’t enough to keep me upright. I find the nearest bedroom, burrito myself in a blanket, and drift down… deeper. Suddenly, I’m back in my royal-red uniform, delivering letters through a grim Bronx-like neighbourhood — barking dogs rattling fences, dog mess smeared across cracked pavements, litter strewn over patchy front lawns. The kind of place where even the houses look tired of existing. A car crawls up beside me, and someone inside starts waving wildly, like they’re trying to flag down a rescue helicopter. I ignore the manic waving and keep delivering. Probably just another nutter. Comes with the territory — the great british loony bin public. Honk. Honk. I jolt so hard I nearly deliver myself into the nearest hedge. “Amanda!” That voice. I’d know it even if I’d been dead for thirty years. Amber. A friend from more than a decade ago, unchanged. Bright, explosive, vibrating with that hyperactive charisma that could light up a room — and then drive everyone screaming out of it. ADHD personified, lovely in microscopic doses. “It’s so good to see you again!” she beams. “We must meet up!” Ah yes, that old classic. Translation: See you in another decade, if memory serves us both. We exchange pleasant nothings. I wave her off and keep delivering. Later, I’m home — watering my jungle of plants. Half of them droop dramatically, like aristocrats fainting at scandalous news. A few have fully given up and keeled over. Already floating up to compost heaven in the sky. I water them anyway, knowing it’s hopeless. But ritual is comforting. A knock. I open the door and there they are — Terri and Laura. Two more ghosts from the archives. “Hey guys,” I say, with the enthusiasm of someone who just wants to water her plants in peace. “What brings you ladies to my door?” “We were in the area,” Terri says. “Thought we’d pop round for a cuppa and some jaffas.” She produces a packet of Jaffa cakes from her pocket like a magician revealing a rabbit. Jaffa cakes and tea — our old ritual. Always consumed alongside the holy gospel of Jeremy Kyle, back when he strutted through daytime TV like a feral king. Before he was deemed too offensive. Before the world got a bit too “woke” to handle him. All good things come to an end. Even trash TV. Laura is quiet. Her usual booming Welsh commentary is turned down to a whisper. I try to start conversation. “Have I got the right number for you?” “My number is on Facebook,” she answers flatly. End of conversation. She knows I don’t have Facebook. Haven’t since the dinosaurs roamed. “So we own the house now!” I say brightly. Nothing. Not even a polite “Congrats.” They just stand there like two stone gargoyles silently critiquing my existence. A sadness stirs. The three amigos, reunited — and not a spark between us. We used to be thick as thieves: Drunk lunches at college. Road trips to Ikea. Screaming Rihanna in Terri’s yellow car, sounding like three cats scrapping in a bin. Nightclubs, where Laura stalked marines like an unhinged predator. One marine even leapt off my second-floor balcony to escape, abandoning his boots like Cinderella’s traumatised cousin. But that’s how it goes. The Jaffa cakes crumble where it crumbles. And sometimes it crumbles into silence. Friendships die. Legacies fade. Even Jeremy Kyle found his end. And maybe, deep down, I never even liked Jaffa cakes. Are they a cake? A biscuit? Some confused hybrid creature masquerading as both? Maybe I’ll never know. Maybe I’ve made peace with who I am now — someone who drinks jasmine green tea, waters her plants, and doesn’t watch daytime TV anymore. Because the truth is, these ghosts don’t belong in this version of my life. And I don’t belong in theirs. Then — I hear it again. That soft, deflating whistle. Short bursts of air, making a fragile, familiar tune. I turn around. Terri and Laura are gone. The front door stands open, quietly breathing. On the table: A packet of uneaten Jaffa cakes. Three untouched cups of tea cooling into nothing. And as the air escapes from somewhere in the house — the same haunted-air melody that led me through the corridors — I realise: I’ve heard this song before. Bum bum be-dum, bum bum be-dum bum. A farewell in a rhythm I finally understand.