Creative.Metaphor

Inspection
By Robin Zemek

“Ma’am, do you know what percentage of cocoa this is?”
Shirley stared blankly off into the distance before opening her mouth.
“Dunno. Isn’t it milk chocolate?”
Damien tapped at it gingerly.
“No. It’s not. It’s way too dark.”
“How dark?”
“Hard to say. Could be upwards of 80%.”
He took out a small chisel and chipped off a piece, then scooped it up with tweezers.
“Harrison, get in here. I need you to take a look at this.”
Another man stepped into the room, his eyes narrowing. He ran his hands through his grey hair.
“Sweet Athabasca cooking oil, what do we have here?”
“Think it may be too dark sir.”
Harrison took the sample off the tweezers and placed it in his mouth. He didn’t even chew.
“Bitter.”
“Just as I thought sir.”
“This is way too dark.”
“That’s what I was telling Mrs. Nougent here.”
“This is way over regulation.”
“Of course.”
Shirley squeaked in a word.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Mrs. Nougent what we have here is building code violation. Due to the abundance of gum drop precipitation around these parts, Candyland officials have made it there duty to see that all load bearing walls are made of nothing but milk chocolate. This wall here is an infraction in every sense of the word.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the next gum drop storm you could loose everything. This house shouldn’t have been built with such high cocoa concentrations. Dark chocolate just doesn’t hold up in this climate. Maybe in Fudgetown, or the Gingerbread forest, but not here.”
Damien placed his chisel back in its leather case. He looked back at Shirley.
“We know a contractor who will fix these walls right up. Don’t you worry.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled.
“No thanks needed, Mrs. Nougent, we’re just doing our jobs. Candyland needs to get it’s buildings up to code. We don’t want another candy cane Katrina mess on our hands...”
Harrison put on his sunglasses and somewhere in the distance Don’t Get Fooled Again started to play.