Friday, September 03, 2010

Chocolates (Bite one)

It had been a while since I let loose my vocabularies to have a run in the pen, Mukah being the sort of place where tranquillity (itself a better word than boredom) can lull your brain to sleep.

Actually it had been more than a year.

Luckily, the recent dose of cold Melbourne air had been a blast of freshness, the breathtaking city and beautiful people providing a revitalizing effect. 

This short essay is named Chocolates. First part appears as below:

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The silver ribbon unravelled upon the delicate touch of her dainty fingers. Like a flower bud on the throes of blossoming, the petals of the pearl white cardboard wrapper wavered momentarily, before slowly springing outwards to reveal the sweet gem enclosed within.

It is a rugged piece of chocolate brownie, dusted with an uneven patch of cocoa powder and with dark chocolate rivers oozing deliciously from the seams at the side. She can discern a faint smudge of a fingerprint on the wrapper, peaking from underneath a corner of the cake. It jumps up like a playful taunt, a suggestive allure from the mystery cake deliverer. Now you got my fingerprint, find the police and search for me! She feels a tingle of excitement running down her spine.

Tonight is the sixth night in a row the chocolate themed treat appeared right on her doorstep. The first time it happened was on a slow dreary Monday night. She was immersed in the dreamy world of Grey’s Anatomy on her pink laptop when the ding-dong of the doorbell suddenly chimed, echoing the ninth and last mellifluous note of her Made-In-Japan angular analog clock.

She rose and went to open the door of the apartment, curious to know the identity of this unexpected late night guest. She was greeted by a blast of cold empty air, and the blackness of the wintery night stared back at her. She was flummoxed for a moment, before she glanced down and saw it. There it was, as it had appeared today, an exquisite whitish square positioned grandly right in the middle of her oval rattan woven mat, exuding a classy glow under the fluorescent porch light shining on it, taking in all her attention like a film star on stage.

She had picked it up tentatively, eyeing it with suspicion. She scrutinized the four sides slowly for clues and found that it was blemish-free. She opened the box with trepidation, her heart picking up pace, unsure of what she will find inside. She caught the aroma of the warm cocoa smell before she saw the perfectly round chocolate macaroon inside. A yellow stick-it note adorned one side of the interior wall. It contained her name and the neatly written Especially for you. It was unsigned.

With clockwork precision, the parcel reappeared on Tuesday. The only difference was that it was a chocolate rocky road, with fluffy pink marshmallows, crunchy hazelnuts and fine flakes of desiccated coconut sandwiched between the generous layers of chocolate. These sudden surprises filled her with apprehension, yet she found her insatiable curiosity piqued. Who is this cake delivery man, shrouded in mystery?

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