A Story of a Hot Chocolate
by Yola M. Caecenary
A long rain paralysed the metropolis and hid the smiles of some folk who were eager to beat every second of time. I might imagine so because I was one of those people once.
But not today, today I just fight against the chill that I tried to confront with a thick blanket I put around me.
I went downstairs, opened one of the kitchen cabinets and voilà, it's there. A can of my favourite chocolate drink.
I let the thunder and the light play hide-and-seek outside while I stirred the drink on the hot stove and let the pleasant choco scent fill the whole kitchen.
I sat at a table and slightly touched the porcelain cup. The warmth slipped into my skin and soothed me in a second.
I threw my sight to the large glass door and saw my lawn poured on by the not-so-timid rain that lasted forever.
I scented the chocolate fragrance and tasted its flavour and closed my eyes. The raindrops and the thunder still occupied the present while my mind flew to a time where I suddenly scented my mother's after-bath incense and sensed she was sitting next to me with her choco and started to talk to me.
I tried to open my eyes but couldn't. I tried harder but only tears streamed down while I kept hearing her voice that I've missed a lot and she said the phrase that I've always known right before the thunder shattered all.
I opened my eyes to find I was all alone with a cup of fragrant hot chocolate that was faithfully comforting my heart. I wiped off the tears. The rain lingered.
"I love you, too, Mum, " I said before I rose.
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Yola M. Caecenary lives in Indonesia. Telling stories is a challenge and an opportunity for her to linearise the ideas in her mind and to express herself. In 2013, in a collaboration with some friends, she published her first short stories anthology Siluet dalam Sketsa. Her other English-language work has been published in Friday Flash Fiction and Failed Haiku.
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