Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CANDY (04/28/16)
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TITLE: Sweet Temptation | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
05/02/16 -
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I interlaced my fingers and leaned on my forearms. “I know what you mean. I’ve got three drawers dedicated to candy. People just don’t understand the sweet temptation.”
Sharon nodded. “I’ve been taking classes, one-a-term, for eighteen years. Candy has kept me going through every one of those papers.” She pointed at her office door. “I finally officially graduated two weeks ago. Someone covered my office door in Smarties. I ate them all.”
“Confession is good for the stomach,” I said. “Do you have a favorite kind of candy?”
Sharon raked her fingers through long grey-flecked, strawberry locks flowing down to her shoulders. She inhaled deeply and blew out threw her mouth. Her grey-green eyes pierced me as if weighing how much she could trust me.
“I’m a sucker for boxes of chocolates,” I said.
A nod. “That’s all I get for Christmas, Easter and Birthdays now,” she admitted. “People think that’s all I like.” She twisted the Seiko watch band on her wrist then adjusted the fish necklace dangling outside her flowered blouse. She stuffed it inside and twirled a daffodil earring.
I waited.
She finally looked me in the eyes again. “The truth is, I like cream-filled hard candies, toffees, gourmet jelly beans, gummy bears, lollipops, gum drops… pretty much anything they make.”
“Have you ever gone to those stores where they have plastic tubes filled up to the ceiling with colored candies?”
Sharon’s eyes grew wide and her breathing quickened. “How did you know? When we went to the Holy Land the others walked the Via Dela Rosa and I walked the aisles of the candy shop. I’ll spend hours in the mall on my days off, most of it staring at the tubes of candy.”
I smiled. This was a true soul mate. “I’ve had eighteen crowns on my teeth and still haven’t figured out why.”
She straightened up and shook her head slowly. “You’re a pastor,” she said. “My mentor. I thought you had everything figured out.”
“I think you need to see a counselor,” I said. “It sounds like you have an addiction.”
Sharon twisted her watch strap again. “Do you know what it’s like to get off of sugar? I hear it’s worse than coming off cocaine.”
“If you don’t get off of sugar somehow you’re probably destined for Alzheimer’s disease. They call it the diabetes of the brain, you know.”
Sharon rose up from her chair and leaned stiff-armed on the kitchen counter by the sink. She stared out the window as if lost in thought.
“It is possible to beat this,” I said.
“Some days I feel like it’s already beaten me,” she said. “How am I supposed to be helping others in their trouble when I can’t get past my own?”
I stood up from my chair and walked to stand beside her. I rested my hand on her shoulder. “If it helps, knowing that I’m not the only one who struggles with candy has already encouraged me to feel like maybe I need to face my own temptations more seriously. It’s like Paul tells the Corinthians when he says that the comfort we’ve been given from God is a comfort we can pass on to others. When we realize we’re all struggling in some way it keeps us humble and able to listen and hear each other without judgment.”
She turned and leaned back against the counter with her arms crossed over her chest. “So, where do we start?”
I opened the door under the sink, pulled out a trash can and handed it to her.
Sharon took it. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “All of it.”
She marched down the hall and I listened as several drawers were opened and shut. In five minutes she was back, the trash can half-full of the best sweets I’d seen in hours. “Your turn,” she said.
“Whoa!” I said. “Who said anything about my candy?”
“How are you going to comfort me if you don’t first feel the pain?” she asked. “First your pockets, the glove compartment, then the three candy drawers.”
“And if I do?"
"Then, yes, I will marry you, even without your candy."
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