I slid
through the door as dread echoed with my empty thoughts. Keeping my head low, I
dragged my feet along to the store counter. I thought about how these outside
encounters never ended well and usually they did with a sigh of relief.
Surprisingly, a sweet, familiar scent danced from my nose to my brain letting
me know that this place was okay. I looked up for the first time and saw what
hung on the walls; sweet, sweet, chocolate. My eyes danced around from basket
to basket, from flavour to flavour. My mouth began to water.
I stood there for a while, mouth agape, until a voice called
my name. It was my sister. I broke my stare with the treats and skipped over to
say hello.
“What is
this place?” I questioned. The smell still twirled in my mind.
“It’s a
chocolate factory. Didn't anyone tell you what we were doing today?” I shook my
head slightly bothered by the fact that no one tells me anything any more. I quickly got over it and looked around the
room to look at all of the things I had missed the first time around. On my
left was a never ending chocolate waterfall spilled over a conveyor belt, and
on my right hung plastic molds of all shapes and sizes.
While I scanned the scenery for more
interesting things, the other members of our party strolled in. We all sat silently on stools at the cold
metal table in the middle room until an employee came to welcome us.
“Hello! Has anyone been here before?” Her loud voice bounced
off the close walls. Some of us nodded and others were as equally amazed as I
was by this place. The perky employee jumped from station to station to explain
the rules. I was hardly listening. I had already been captivated by a mold I
was dying to use.
She let us explore and instantly I
darted toward the plastic shark mold hanging on the wall. I knew what to do. I
ran back to the table and snatched graham cracker crumbs and the milk chocolate
funnel from the unsuspecting worker. I spread out the crumbs onto the bottom of
my shark mold. Then I started to pour the chocolate slowly but I grew impatient
with the snail pace at which the sticky substance crawled out of the funnel. I
tipped it forward and before I knew it, a glob spread out over the mold. I
jerked back and set the chocolate down. It was perfect.
I signalled to the employee that I
was ready to have my masterpiece placed in the fridge. She politely did so. I
waited for 10 minutes busying myself with making truffles, waiting for my chocolate
to come out. That perky voice called out my name and I knew it was done. I took
my shark out of the mold only to realize that since I had rushed too quickly I
had not mixed the crumbs. The face of my “masterpiece” was unrecognizable under
the layered coats of graham cracker. Devastated, I stared at my ugly shark,
took another look, and just ate it anyway.