Chocolate Daydream

By C. L. Beck
© 2006

Last week in writing group our moderator/teacher, Shirley Bahlmann, gave us an assignment to write about a place made of food. The idea behind it was to get the juices flowing. No, not stomach juices—creative juices.

Pardon the pun, but an assignment like that is a piece of cake. There’s only one thing that rivals the high you get from creating a story. And that’s food. To be more precise, that’s chocolate.

Perhaps I was born a rebel, but the first thing I did was fudge (ooo, there’s another reference to food) on the assignment and write about my favorite chocolate daydream. It goes like this.

The day starts with eggs for breakfast. You know, Cadbury Eggs, with the smooth, creamy chocolate outside and the yellow and white fondant inside. The Cadbury chocolate is like a blessing from the gods as it touches my lips.

Next, as I get ready for work, my husband gives me a kiss . . . a Hershey’s Kiss. The silver wrapping causes my heart to pitter-patter. Opening it up, the chocolate is firm in my hand and, oh, so warm in my mouth, as it caresses my taste buds and slides away, leaving only the memory of its lusciousness.

As much as I’d like, the day can’t consist of just eating chocolate. Dressed in my dark-chocolate, skin-tight, size four jeans (yes, it is a daydream), I put on my lipstick. Aaah, just the right shade—Chocolate Passion.

Next, I spritz my wrists with perfume, inhaling the ethereal fragrance by . . . who else but Coco Chanel. The heady scent lingers in the air, bringing memories of cool fall days, where I’m curled up by the fireplace, dunking a decadent chocolate cake-donut into a cup of steaming hot cocoa.

Sadly, I do have to complete the writing assignment, and so the fantasy winds down.

The daydream fades as I envision hugging my teenage son, Chip, whose aftershave smells like no-bake chocolate cookies blended with chocolate mint ice cream. As I walk out the door, I do one last act—a goodbye pat to the soft, fuzzy head of our new puppy, Tootsie Roll.

I hate for this flight of fancy to end—probably even more than you do. That’s the world of a writer, however. Life goes on, and we have to tear ourselves away from our writing to live in reality . . . if only long enough to bring home the bacon.

What’s that? I’m sorry; did I leave you wondering about something? You want to know what kind of dog Tootsie Roll is?

Why, she’s a chocolate lab, of course.