Humour: The Reminiscences of a Choco Addict

 

No matter how hard I swallow, my tongue remains perpetually flooded until the slab of chocolate is removed from my direct line of sight. My tongue in order to satiate its irresistible urge to bite into a bar of chocolate, involuntarily pushes against the central incisors which obligingly part and guide the tongue towards the lips. The tongue slides between the lips like an adder escaping through a crevice and then in a twinkling rubs its way back to its throne in the oral cavity producing what is called a ‘smack’ during the return journey. This abrupt and unaccountable action of the tongue leaves its owner in a soup because many eyeballs in an assumed disdain begin to roll in his general direction and the services of corresponding lips, commence. This leaves him with no option but to flash a demurred smile at the owners of the aforementioned somatic spare parts.

 

A chocolate addict or any addict for that matter is well shielded by his thick epidermis against such human emotions as ‘disdain’, ‘contempt’ and ‘scorn’. It thickens as a result of direct and constant association with the troika since his early days when the now conservative addict used to feed on a diet that constituted of nothing but his thumb and saliva. The above hypothesis is applicable to me, as well.

Given the propensity of my well-wishers to shovel me into an educational institution at a very tender age of four and leave me at the mercy of man-eating instructors for a considerable part of the day, I’m led to believe that I was an early-bloomer. Being in the constant limelight and having an image of an early-bloomer to preserve, I had to get rid of this childlike habit of sucking on my thumb at the earliest. But however hard I tried, my thumb inadvertently made its way into my oral cavity where my tongue lapped it up as a welcoming gesture until one day I realized that these educational institutions have a very strict code for afflicting the concept of personal grooming and general hygiene on the proletariat and that I could use this credo to my advantage.

 

From that day on, I discarded the use of a nail-cutter for manicuring my fingernails and chose my teeth, incisors mostly, to shred the undesirable growth of dead cells on my fingers, commonly known as nails, to the prescribed shape, size and proportion, instead. Notwithstanding the wavy edges of my nails, this somehow made the fingers look presentable and helped me to escape my tormentors, unhurt. But this habit of biting nails grew on me and evolved into an addiction. My well-wishers began slapping my knuckles with blunt instruments to dissuade me from using my nails as constant companions to munch on.

 

One day while I was furiously munching on my nails, one of my well-wishers, exhausted to the point of collapse from delivering the juiciest ones on my knuckles for quite some time then, decided to call it a day and play Willy Wonka, instead. He presented me with a large bar of chocolate as a ruse to affect distraction. I neither registered any emotion as most kids of my age did at being presented with something as savory as a chocolate nor showed any inclination to return my host’s geniality. Perplexed, he waved it at my face and ordered, “Stop biting your nails and shred this baby to pieces”

 

I was always attracted to chocolates but nurtured a sort of a brotherly affection towards them and never invaded the privacy of a solitary bar lying in the vicinity without proper invitation or a valid license to consume it from the authorities. Now all conditions satisfied, I was encouraged to snatch the chocolate bar from his hand and carefully unwrap it.

 

No sooner did I unwrap the dexterously crafted dark-brown wonder than its celestial and soporific aroma filled my nostrils, invaded my senses, embraced my soul and pushed me on the verge of psychedelic delight. There it was in all its magnificent beauty – shiny with well tempered edges and an even gloss on its surface too inviting and too tempting to resist. My playful fingers snapped a piece from the bar and delivered the goods to the mouth. As soon as this piece of chocolate touched the tongue, it melted and tickled my palate with joyous sensations, electrified my entire being and elevated me to the higher state of cosmic consciousness.

 

Since that day of my holy communion with chocolate to this one, I've been devoutly addicted to it.

 

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© All rights reserved, 2013 by Ratandeep Satwant Singh. Please visit me at DeadwoodEdition.com and tweet me at Poet_Ratan.