All I Want is Your Sweet Sweet Candy

There is this new favorite shop in town where I live. I accidentally discovered it on my way back from school a few days back. Technically, the store is a candy store, but from the outside, all you see is a small run down unassuming colonial-style wooden building. It is smacked right between two much bigger corporate-brand departmental stores; if you are the type that walk hurriedly like myself, slim chance you'll notice it. From the outside, there is just a big wooden door, an opaque dark green window and a paint-brushed 'open' sign dangling haphazardly from its rusty doorknob. The store doesn't even have a sign that tells you it's a candy store, but once inside, all you see is candy.

The store's wooden door had this little cowbell that makes the sound of crystal snowflakes falling when you pushed the door open. The sound reminded me of another quite similar candy store when I was in kindergarten. The storekeeper, standing behind the cash register, smiled upon seeing me coming into his store. Just a short warm smile and a quick neighborly howdy and then he went around to the back of the store. He had thick white hair and a long white beard, and another glance at the storekeeper's rotund build, you would've been convinced that he makes toys for little kids and rides a reindeer snow sleigh too. Seeing that the storekeeper was out of sight, I took my winter jacket and gloves off and ventured deeper into the store all in the leisure of my own privacy.

From one wall to the other, and one shelf to the next, and both to my right and left, from the highest paper box to the lowest plastic container, all that I saw was candy. Candies in this color and that color, and from candies with the most common flavors to that of the most exotic hybrids, and this shape of candy and that shape of candy, one being in bite-size packages and another in easy-to-tear wrappings, all candies from the good old days of homemade cooking and all the candies from the latest line of industrial recipes, brand-name candies that you know their catchy TV advertisement jingles by heart and those with awkward names that you have never heard of before, delicious candies that you remember liking so much when you were the little brat that you tagged to your mom's dress asking her to buy more and crappy candies that you remember feeling so very cheated for buying them with your hard earned money that you swore over your pet cat's grave never to buy again; all this and more, in all of its sweet sugary glory. Standing in the inside of the store that day was a giddy schoolboy.

"This is candy heaven; where candies go to die."

Without me knowing it, a light layer of saliva marched its way down to the far edges of my lips. I felt that it would be such a great waste of time, and such a great disappointment to myself, not to get out of this wonderful candy store, especially having discovered it for the first time, without having a piece of the store to commemorate it by. Thus, instinctively, I grabbed my wallet to see how much cash I had in hand. To my dismay, not much was there, and this is not to say that I am poor, but rather I am the kind who prefers the security of a debit card over the convenience of a bountiful cash, and although it was possible to pay for a single silly candy using a credit card, no sane or civilized person would do such a thing - it is akin to paying the parking meter with a personal check. Immediately, I reached down into my trousers pockets, all of them, fronts and backs and the ones next to the belt head that I only put my keys in, and the few pockets from my winter jacket, and ransacked them vigorously for any monies available, in the forms of coins or notes, but to no avail; only an expired bus pass from days before.

"All this candy, and a beat-up dollar bill and a Canadian quarter."

Inside the most wonderful store that I have ever been to in all of my wayward drifter life, a magical fantasyland that each child in this world has dreamt for at least once in their lifetime, with the lush variety of candies stretching from as far as the eye can see, and the vast quantity of candies in the magnitude as many as my round chubby fingers can hold on to, all the glorious power handed down to me that I had in my immediate grasp as a potential consumer was a miniscule US$1.25, an amount that not only would make me feel so powerless and so emasculated, so stripped off of my already diminishing elements of masculinity, but also like poor David bending over the supper table, and with his two feet spreading apart, while the great giant Goliath rams back and forth a two-headed spear up his anal canal and singing him a rock-a-bye-baby lullaby. And with that, thus, the innate module of faith started to kick in, being in such a financially parched state, and with the hedonistic craving for sugary candy in great dire, the default mode of emotions was that to find the true source of solace: God. Only when we can't have what we really want will we put our puppy-eyed face and trembling-hungry hands to God, and have you not heard it mentioned in the Holy Scriptures that candy is the soul food for the faithful. Thus, then, the trip to the newfound candy store had become a spiritual journey; under the shade of a giant candy poster, I was enlightened by a divine and pure light of candy consciousness.

"Oh God, all I want is Your sweet sweet candy..."

Before I was able to finish up my desperate made-up one-liner prayer, a deep low-end voice seemed to be coming from my left side, from the general direction of the candy store's cash register. As I stood frozen in the middle of the chocolate bar aisle with my two hands pretentiously cupped to God's attention, slowly but carefully, I turned my head towards the source of the voice, and to my mild surprise, there he was, the storekeeper, with all of his Santa Claus resemblance, waving his arms at me as if signaling to stop praying and come close to him instead. It took me quite a while to fully understand his unfamiliar storekeeping gestures, but he was, in fact, telling me to stop standing in a very candy-hypnotized posture in the middle of the chocolate bar aisle and come near him. A few deep breaths later, I gathered enough self-esteem from within to walk up to the cash register and confront him. All along what seemed to be the most humiliating short walk to a store's cash register, the storekeeper kept a static dry smile on his face. About a few more steps ahead, I started talking.

"Yes?"
"Were you looking for a specific type of candy?"
"Err... actually, no."
"Oh... then, may I help you with anything, sir?"
"Well, I... your store..."
"Is this your first time here?"
"Yes."
"Have you been to a candy store before?"
"It's been a while since..."
"Ah... no wonder..."
"Hm?"
"I see that here is a man who has forgotten how to be a boy again."
"No, no, I just found out that I don't enough have cash to..."
"Come with me, my boy, come..."
"But, I..."
"Please, come and walk next to me, and listen..."

******

Do you have a girlfriend, my boy? You don't know what that is? She is someone who lets you call her your 'honey bun'? No? How about a crush on anyone? Classmates? Juniors? Pop stars? Princesses? Yes? No? Why? Do you even like girls? Oh, not at this age? Not yet? You have your reasons, yes? They are too afraid? Really? How about during your high school years? Yes? No? Not sure?

My boy, let me tell you something. This candy business, the secret of the trade, is like choosing a girlfriend, a true love. When the moment comes for you to buy a candy to satisfy your sweet tooth's craving, and with only enough amount of money for you to buy just one single candy to fulfill that mind-numbing desire, when you step into a candy store, don't you ever let your lust have a say in choosing which candy to bring home to. Girls are like candies, candies are like girls. They come in all kind of super sexy flavors, all type of curvaceous shape, all manner of insomnia-inducing wrappings, and all degree of mighty-fine sweetness. Believe me, my boy. I've been in this business for many many years now, I know how it goes, and only God knows how many times I have held myself back from giving in into my gluttonous desires.

And like all girls, with all candies, you the buyer must make the first move. Touch them gently, hold them in your hand lovingly, smell them with passion, rub your nose to its soft plastic wrapping erotically, lick it wet to the stick and show them sincerely how much you appreciate their tenderness, their texture, their aroma. Let the candy know that you are here exclusively for it, and whisper to it that you are hungry only for the candy and the candy alone. Never ever play the foolish hopeless Romeo with a candy, my boy. Remember, candies talk to each other. They are a close-knit sisterhood, these candies. You can never imagine how dull and bland and lonely the world can become without a piece of sweet sweet candy by your side to lick and suck at your behest. To a candy, once unwrapped, never twice licked by the same fool. Thus, be wary of your first move to a candy, my boy.

The key to a candy's heart is an air of mystery, and the aphrodisiac that never fails to light up the most dormant fire of the coldest candy heart is total disregard. Like to a girl, to a candy, as you walk into her sight, be not seductive, be not intimidating, be not acknowledging; but be you nonchalant, be you oblivious, be you uninterested. Such a beautiful girl, like that a delicious candy, God has equipped her, proportional to her beauty, a certain amount of pride that will savor every single speck of pain inflicted by your apathetic gesture. Concur her not to your disregard of her beauty; she will haunt herself with the mystery of you. The more you ignore me, the closer I get, said the promiscuous eyes of the candy. You are wasting your time, boy, for you are now the central part of my mind's landscape, whether you care or do not, said the trembling heart of the candy. Be wary then, my boy, for the hunter has then become the hunted.

Another man's candy is another man's poison. To stare at another man's candy is a grave sin, to flirt with another man's candy is a punishable by law, and to take away from a man his beloved candy, even if the candy whispers to you how much it longs for your licking, for your touching, for your sucking; if you say that you are a man at all, then a candy is not worth to break the bond of brotherhood for, for God He is Wise, for He is who created candies from the ribs of Man in great abundance in amount, variety and flavors. For one man to fight, to break bonds, to be saddened, to feel hopeless over another man's candy is such a waste of time and energy, and such a great loss to the brotherhood that is. Once you have known that this candy and that candy have been licked by other men, please, and with respect to your licking brothers, pack up and leave; there are more candies worth looking for.

Always be gentle to a candy, not all of them are crazy for your animal tongue, for your rough lips, for your strong hands. Candies are fragile beings, my boy; they have feelings. Make love, not war. Savor every single droplet of sweet sweet sugary juice that comes out of a candy like it is your last, and you will be loved like you have never been loved by a candy in your life before. And always remember that a candy has several layers to it inside; when you think that you have known well enough the taste of a candy for some long period of time, suddenly it will expose to you a new layer of taste, a new layer of excitement, a new layer of secret. Never ever judge a candy by the first lick, the first sniff.

My boy, choosing a candy is a hard thing to do, and choosing that one special candy is a great big curse bestowed upon all of us from generation to generation, a great big burden that tests and builds your character as a mature man. Let not its hardships hamper you in the pursuit of a true sweetness. When you arrive in a candy store, like choosing the one that you will call your lover, let not lust impair your judgment, let not peer pressure ruin your decision, let not the desperate loneliness drive you to a wrong fork at the road. Take your time. Explore the store. Find the one that you will truly love.

"Oh God, oh Mr Candy Store Man, I'd love to have a sweet sweet candy right now."