The Candy Machine

I always wondered how i still remember some seemingly very much simple details about my childhood.

For instance this one, climbing on to my wits, squeezing out my last bits of self control to save a 2₹ coin from my pocket money and eagerly waiting for the school bell to ring. And that hasty run to a candy machine with a hand on my pocket so that the coin doesn't jump out . The candy machine shop was in a lane my mom always warned me to  never go to.

And that is how i discovered my 'Pandora's box'.The lane was weird in a lot of ways with a way leading to an infamous haunted well blamed of eating up humans and the other way leading to a place where humans where blamed of eating up other humans.Having a candy machine in such a lane somehow  reminded me of Halloween treats,i still used to run to that shop everyday.

I push that coin in the Machine ,and those last shared glances between me and the candies  before they come out of the machine were no less than a classic romantic scene to me.But those candies were a bit of an irony for me everytime i went to that shop the more colourful the candies were, equally colourful was the shop but it was owned by an old woman who always seemed to be staring at a distance with face  perfectly tightened up to show  absolutely no emotions .

She once came to help me out  as my coin got stuck into that machine.And after that i sat there for a while talking to her,

All those tense muscles of her face were a cocoon for her emotions of grief,loss and loneliness with an added dormancy to that  cocoon by the insecurities of responsibilities that she had to handle now all alone.

She had lost her husband a few months back,that shop was probably her only source of income,and all those infamous rumours about the lane made it further difficult for her. How Mysterious it is that our mind works in metaphors as well to form memories.Everytime i look at a candy machine it reminds me of that woman that somehow helps me get in touch with my own traumas..