I DIDN’T DO IT NOBODY SAW ME YOU CAN’T PROVE ANYTHING, PLUS THIS IS FICTION

On my way home from the farm store a few weeks of mornings ago I stopped at another store, sort of a wine/liquor costco, where I now and then pick up bulk canned goods, which I did, and incidentally - more like cosmicly - found there on sale those-dark chocolate cherries in liqueur they used to sell back in the fifties, the ones with the little chocolatey swirl on top, exotic Italian brand name I think - began with a Z, I also think, or maybe a C - wrapped in red and silver foil, sold in the sort of elite section of the drug store if you can imagine that today, you younger folk, no penny candies or lowly nickel Snickers these: two for 15 cents, some odd price like that, you couldn't buy only one, and I would afford myself just two each week from my paper route money and they were all the more delicious for that rarity...

Well in that morning's store I spotted as I say some bags of dark-chocolate liqueur cherries wrapped in red and silver foil, and of a brand name starting with a Z of all things, so I bought two bags nobody saw me and when I got out to the car I opened one bag and as that 1950s dark-chocolate-cherry fragrance filled the car I was 15 again, a familiar heedlessness coming over me, so I opened one of the red-foil-wrapped gems, popped it into my mouth and chomped down and time became as nothing as it had in that 4-on-the-floor souped-up '57 Chevy I used to have because when I was young I was so rich in time I didn't even notice it flying by, except that now instead of only two cherries I had two bags full of them so I ate I won't tell you how many but I bet you can guess, and time was rich with what age is all about...