The Candy Shop
Every day was the same. Buses honking outside houses, where children bustled out with a slice of toast or dangling neck-ties. Cars pulled out into the busy streets. Ladies greeted each other with a fresh assortment of gossip. And Jim rummaged in the dump yard for a penny or two.
But today, it was different. No buses, no cars or people seemed to hover around. Jim set out for the usual only to find the streets empty. “That was odd”, Jim thought to himself. The Sun glared down at his tan arms and battered straw hat. So Jim decided to mount his squeaky little bicycle and pedal along to never where. His bicycle was a shade of pastel pink with a cute basket where he seldom carried the coins he collected for the day. “It’s a pity how children don’t value simple luxury”, he thought to himself, whistling.
As he pedalled through a narrow street, he stumbled across a dusty alley which seemed to have appeared out of the blue. In ten years of scrounging for gold, he had never seen an alley like this. Since curiosity got the better of him, he decided to head into the cobbled alley. The sky had cooled down to a shade of copper grey though there was no indication of a downpour.
Jim rode past dilapidated shops and abandoned homes which seemed to peel away from the rest of the world. The trees were a pale grey colour, twisting into crooked branches like that of a witch’s fingers. It was when Jim had dropped the idea of exploring further that he noticed a candy shop. Now this was strange. Candy shops were usually a screaming array of bright colours with candies displayed at the windows. But this one seemed to lure you into its dark captivity. It was a mysterious violet façade drawing you into a portal.
Jim found himself pushing past the glass door as a bell tingled at his arrival. The shop was old and musty, yet a comfortable room surrounded by numerous jars of candies and packets of chocolates lined up on wooden shelves. Narrow streaks of sunlight broke in through the cracks on the window, causing a few jars to twinkle. He reached out for one of the jars, almost about to topple over when a voice chirruped, “Careful my dear! Those jars cost a fortune.”
He swivelled around to spot an old woman at the counter. “But my sweet, come over and have a look at this colourful mix of candies”. He walked over to the counter to see the most sweet-looking candies gleaming in different sets of colours filling the jar to its brim. He saw that the woman’s eyes were the same colour of violet as that of the shop’s façade. Her silver hair was tied into a high bun with carrot- shaped earrings dangling on either side. She handed him a red candy just when he remembered, “But I have no coins to pay for these!”, he exclaimed in a disappointed tone.
“Oh no, my dear! I don’t charge for these, especially for precious little customers like you” she added with a smile. So he popped it into his mouth. A split second later, he found himself in a boat drifting in soothing waves of the sea. At first, the waves seemed to rise higher each time they hit the boat and then they grew fierce enough to almost knock the boat over, causing him to nearly fall off the boat. He picked up the oar behind him and rowed as fast as he could, rising and falling against the wrath of the sea. The faster he rowed, the farther he seemed to get as the sky and sea stirred into the old and musty room again. The woman was eyeing him with peculiar excitement. “That was sweet, wasn’t it?”, she prodded. He nodded in answer. “ May I please have another one?” he pleaded. “Alright, have as many as you like. But remember dear, greed fades you away”, she replied, pointing out a weary finger. He didn’t quite understand what she meant by that but proceeded to pick out a blue one this time.
He popped it into his mouth and the room materialized into a field of white lilies under an endless trail of clouds dissolving into pockets of light blue. Dew drops kissed his feet as he walked through the field. After a while, he wondered how long it would take to reach the end of the field just when he heard a soft hum which quickly turned into a buzzing sound. The sound came in union and when he turned around to look for the source, he spotted countless bees advancing towards him. He instantly turned away and ran as swift as his feet could carry him. As soon as the swarm of bees caught up with him, the field of lilies dissolved into the shop again.
The old woman seemed to have vanished somewhere and so had his left toe, or so he imagined. “ Ah! She’s gone. It shouldn’t hurt to have a few more of these”, he murmured and continued to gobble one candy after another. An hour later, the old lady returned to find an empty jar lying on the floor. “I warned you my dear, greed fades you away”, a malicious grin spread across her face.
Legend says that if you see a candy shop in a deserted place, you must rather turn the other way and never return!
