Sunday, May 6, 2012

Five Sentence Fiction: Candy

Not everything is in ruins.
But most of the good stuff is gone.
One morning I crank up my scrapped together go-kart and motor up the coast to a block of boutiques and cafes in a tourist town where even the always red horizon seems a bit dimmer.
I stop into a sweet shop and and there isn't much left, but I do find a Fun Dip under the cashier's drawer (which is still full of useless money).
I lick the marshmallow flavored stick all covered with cherry sugar from its little paper packet, and damn if the last sweet thing on earth doesn't taste just like it did when I was a girl, legs dangling in the water at the Yosemite Avenue Rec Center on a July afternoon in 1987, my eyes still burning from chlorine as “Like a Virgin” played on somebody's radio and was carried away on a hot breeze.

3 comments:

  1. I love where your stories start and where the go. You have a gift of pulling the reader and giving them a completely unexpected journey. Enjoyed that something so innocent, and literally sweet, was set against a backdrop of apocalypse. Wonderful :))

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  2. A really good mix of moods here - the sombre post apocalyptic flavoured with sweet reminiscence. Nice one.

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  3. Brilliant visuals, the desolation then the evocative memories brought back by taste...

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