She had her hoodie up, but unlike most youths, she could rave about not being plugged in to the mainstream ticks. Often she'd be holding a book in her hand reading whilst walking. Like a bat relies on echo she had an intuitive feel for her surroundings. The book was weighing down her hoodie, but this time she was taking it all in: the cars, the trees, the contrast between the brown of that building and the beige of this one. Just as she was looking at a child play with his balloon she was forced to jump back dodging a car with this year's beats blasting out. Alright... maybe her sense of space was not all that great Chloe thought to herself as she got up from the ground. "Gah that's shiiite", the sound as she often called what blurted out of the radio lately sounded like glass shattering to the floor. Or worse... Chloe shuddered at the thought of her nails being filed. Yuck, that imperceptible sound of her nails grinding against that sandpaper like surface was not one she ever liked.
Chloe was walking down the street with a spring in her step today. She was carrying a paper bag, neatly tucked under her arm. In it was her treasure, her guilty pleasure. She knew she bought them in excess, but we've got to satisfy our cravings don't we? she told herself...
Her cupboard was bare though and if only she could sustain herself on the contents of her paper bag. Old wrappers, almost identically folded, lay across the floor of her room. What harm can one more do?
She arrived home and hid it behind her back as she quickly wrestled with the lock in her room. The last thing Chloe wanted was for her flatmate to hassle her about it again. The problem is it wouldn't only just be that, Chloe could laugh at herself but Jack was clingy and would ask to see what it was today. Opening it, her treasure, was worthy of a routine. Like a Mayan sacrifice she followed a protocol. This after all was hardly food for thought.
Chloe opened the fridge, there was a carrot - was that even hers? An old lettuce, with a dark green slimy shadow underneath it. As she stared at it with her eyebrow raised she suddenly got hit by the foul stench of it. Reflexively she turned and coughed, she slammed the fridge door. "Right, I'll try go to bed early tonight..."...
With a light and milk-less cup of tea she managed to brew from a teabag she had noticed trying to hide under the pot of sugar, and with plenty of sugar in it, she sat on her bed with the carton-coloured treasure in front of her. She smiled. Her eyes were fixed on the object; it looked like she was devising a plan as to how she would open it this time. Rip the plastic first? Take it from the edge? Quickly or should she take her time, taste every last second of her fast... Hell, when would the next one be?
Chloe noticed the last wrapper she'd opened, it was tucked under one of her many piles of books. Hardcovers and second-hand gems no-one had heard of lay across her floor as well. It hadn't been vacuumed for months, but how could she vacuum dodging the books and wrappers? This was her room anyhow, she could do whatever she wanted.
She sipped the cup of tea once more before balancing it between her pillow and a copy of Heller's Catch 22 she had yet to start. Fragile white hands picked up the package, she tapped her nails on it, she turned it around so the logo was facing down and patiently unpicked the piece of cellotape. This was her ballet, the only choreographed dance she practiced- but like a jazz musician, there was never a set routine. She turned it round again and broke open all four corners, then the paper crumpled as Chloe, almost in one go but slowly, tore off the wrapper which she threw on the floor. There it was facing her now, reunited at last! she picked it up and inspected it, she smelt its fresh aroma. Then she turned over the cover and read the first line:
"There was a thin child, who was three years old..." before dozing off to sleep.
:) Nifty.
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