story #1

A box of Chocolate

Chocolates were his favorite. He loved the one pound box of See’s assorted chocolate. It was his wife who would buy a box for them to share on special occasions, but now his daughter had taken over that job. She sent this one a couple days ago. He couldn’t recall the occasion for her sending this one, but he didn’t mind; he couldn’t recall the last time he sat down and ate a whole box by himself. Years into their marriage, Greg and his wife Tracey set two rules about how to eat the chocolates and there were to be no exceptions to either rule. The first was “no peeking in the box” and the second one was “take the first one touched.” It was blind faith.

He reached into the box with his eyes closed and grabbed a treat, awaiting the burst of chocolate to come. His teeth sank into a choco-nugget. It tasted just like it had the time when he and Tracey had gone on their first date in college. At the time he didn’t know what to bring for a picnic lunch on the beach so he grabbed his favorite food and hoped that she would like it too. Lucky for him she loved the chocolates, and this one was her favorite. He had let her have all of them that day and whenever they bought boxes of chocolate after that.

Next. Reaching in again, he hoped for his caramel filled chocolate. Instead his hand closed on a long, thin wavy toffee covered in chocolate. This was a good substitute. These chocolates reminded him of his older brother Ralph. When they were growing up, boxes of chocolates had been in the house on special occasions. When the chocolate was there Greg and Ralph always fought over these thin slabs of sweetness. There are only three per box and the two would always have to break the third one in half, which always prompted an argument. Ralph would usually always get the bigger piece, but that was life. A little unfair, but works out in the end.

Ooh the chocolate walnut fudge. When Tracey first brought him over to meet her folks, she didn’t say anything about her mother having a walnut allergy. When Greg brought over a box of sweets and her mom grabbed the chocolate near the walnut fudge, her tongue swelled up and she had a hard time breathing. That was a night to remember. It was a good thing her parents looked past that first evening and still permitted him marry their daughter.

Bringing the next one to his mouth, he explored the unique texture of coconut shavings. One of his early birthday parties did not go as planned. His mother had called in to request a vanilla cake with “Happy Birthday Gregory” on it. She was in a hurry and grabbed the box that they handed her without looking inside. When they finally opened the box, to everyone’s dismay they saw that the cake was definitely not vanilla, nor was it for him. It was covered in coconut shavings with pink icing that read, “Happy Anniversary Kate and Jon.” Oh well, they had eaten the cake anyway and it turned out that it was for the better because it had become his favorite type of cake since.

Next up was the sweet explosion of white chocolate. When his daughter Lizzy was in elementary school, she loved white chocolate more than anything else. She got a kick mostly because it was a different color from the other chocolates she normally ate and still almost tasted just the brown chocolates. Not to mention that the chocolate would also give her quite the sugar rush that made her bounce off the walls literally.

Greg sighed, this would be the final one for the night. Instantly the milk chocolate wrapped around the tip of his tongue and the chewy caramel sticks to his teeth. Some things never change. Ever since he was little he loved the sticky caramel and how it always clung to his teeth. Most people didn’t like that sort of thing, but he did. It was always consistent, something that never changed, which was quite different from his wife; here one moment and the next she’s gone, like a gust of wind blew and took her away without warning. That’s all for now and he closed the box.