Story by Thomas Storey


I loved chocolate. I loved anything sweet. I could sit and stare at the television or just lie on my bed and stare at the vast empty canvas of my ceiling for hours, as long as I had something sweet to suck on. Lollipops or gumdrops, hard or soft, hot or mint, as long as it was sweet; I didn't care. Normal food was so plain, so bland. It made me gag. Meat and bread, fruit and vegetables, torturous islands I endured only in the knowledge that I was only visiting these places, and once I had left them, I could retreat again to that sweet land where I truly lived.

I never cared. When my mother and father said things like, "You really should eat more vegetables," or, "Son, instead of just lying around, why don't you go get some exercise?" It was just something they said. I don't think they even really expected me to listen anyway. So I didn't listen. I didn't eat more vegetables or exercise more. I walked to and from school and that was about it. I never really cared. When kids at school made fun of me for being fat, I lived in a sweet land. I didn't care; they could choke on their bland and bitter food if that was what they wanted.

There was only one time that I started thinking hard about it. I guess it started one day as I was walking home from school, sweet chocolate in hand, it was august, cold and brown and boring, when a very strange man had approached me. He had had a suit on, one like my father's, perfect, clean, and pressed, his teeth shown brighter than the sun, and he wore a wide brimmed hat that hid his eyes. He had a cane, and at the top of his cane, cast spectacularly in silver, was a wonderful slice of cake.

"My boy, what is that you have there?" he had asked.

I tried to hide my chocolate bar. He was so friendly though, and, at the time, I had thought his voice was kind.

He laughed, "My lad, no need to be ashamed! Why, I myself enjoy a good hunk of chocolate now and then!"

I smiled tentatively. He was just so nice.

"But boy, be careful," he said, frowning slightly, "Don't over do it, or we may have to see each other again."

I was going to ask what he meant, but he then turned abruptly and left. I didn't see him again for another three years.

The years passed quickly though. I ate and ate and it was sweet. I never exercised and it was sweet. I never cared and it was sweet. Then one day I met him again, a man who I should have not have even remembered. He approached me again as I was walking home. It took me awhile to walk home now, though school was only a few blocks away it took me almost an hour.

He was shaking his head as he approached. I remembered thinking that he looked sad, "My boy, my boy why? Was it so hard to resist? So hard to change? Or did you really just not care? Well boy, either way it doesn't really matter now, neither of us will enjoy what comes next."

I was older now and wasn't as afraid of strangers. "What are talking about? If you touch me you'll regret it. We're surrounded by houses, I'll call for help," I said. I was going to say, scream for help, but then I realized how it would have sounded.

He smirked, "'call' all you want, no one can help you. Not anymore."

I ran. I turned and ran as fast as I could, faster than I ever had before, until my legs ached and my lungs burned and I had no more air left to scream. I slowed down and looked back; there he was, barely thirty feet back smiling sadly without showing his teeth.

"Oh my boy, my poor boy," he said, leisurely walking toward me, "You may have time for regret, but I doubt it."

"Who are you? What do you want? I didn't do anything to you," I said, I was starting to panic.

He laughed with a kind of real joy, and it seemed suddenly that his friendly nature was back, "My name's Sweet! Thank you for asking! No one ever asks. It makes me sad sometimes. And," he said losing he smile once again, "as for what I want, well, it's not so much what I want, it's more my job you see."

He was very close now and still approaching like it was the last thing on his mind. I, on the other hand, was wildly coughing, wheezing and choking as I tried to push myself away. I had fallen and was now on my ass pushing myself back with my legs. What was going on? Where was everyone? I had cried out as loud as I could and no one had even looked out their widows. And what's with the traffic? Not a single car had passed on my usually busy street.

"If they'd told people they would need me two hundred years ago, well they wouldn't have believed you to say the least. Not that they even had the means to create me back then", he seemed to be talking more to himself now than me.

I looked up at the sky, as if perhaps some kind of salvation would fall from it. The sky was red. A dark red that was almost black. And the sun? It was black. What the hell's going on?

"What the hell's going on? What are you?" I screamed at Sweet. I could see his eyes now, they too were red but lighter and they shifted and danced like fire.

"What am I?" he smiled showing a set of the most horribly rotted teeth I have ever seen or even imagined might exist, "Here, is my card!" And with a flourish he produced a small rectangular business card. He offered it down to me. I reached up with a trembling hand to take it. It said, The World Care Organization. Making your world, a better place.

"What does that mean?" I asked terrified and stalling. I didn't know what he was going to do to me, but I was sure I didn't want to find out.

"Yes, I suppose that doesn't explain much. Well, I'm sort of like the Bogyman, no, no, that's not quite right," he seemed to be thinking quit hard about it, "I'm more like the Tooth Fairy. I come when an exact set of circumstances have been met. Like now!"

"But why?" he had started leaning down toward me and was now only inches from my face.

"Why? It is the reason I was created, the reason I exist. To abolish those who threaten this species. Like you!"

"But, but I'm not a threat! Please, please…" I was sputtering now. He reached out and as his hand eclipsed the black sun he said,

"Oh, but you are."

It was then that I started thinking hard about it, my life and the way I was living it. Of course though, at that point, I didn't have much time left, to think about it.