Marshmallow felt as if she was walking on air, though she wasn’t walking at all. She was sitting on the kitchen countertop. She stared at the fogging window hanging over the sink as glistening falling snow filled her vision. A perfect winter day only made better by the fact she was about to see her dearest friend.
Hot Coco sat on the stove top. He rested in his metal bowl. Heating up, getting his rest. He was the main attraction everytime December rolled around. It was the weather that made him so popular. The chill that shocked every person’s bones when they stepped out onto their front porch in the morning. The snow that captures imagination but can not be touched with bare hands unless you want your skin to sting. He acted as the perfect counter agent to all of this. He could not be so great without the weather. In a way, it made him a force of nature in his own right. A winter chosen one when it came to holiday drinks.
He was warm. Warmth that specifically acts as refuge in the coldest of days, which is why Marshmallow admired him so much, and now she was going to get to spend some time with him. Just her and him bringing much needed holiday cheer. It was prophetic in a way, no one could ever come between that.
The girl who dances around the kitchen sat a strange sweet on the countertop next to Marshmallow.
“I’m Candy Cane.” the sweet piped cheerfully “but just calling me Candy works too. It sounds perkier, don’t you think?”
Marshmallow studied Candy Cane and found her quite perplexing. She was striped in white and red and was the strange shape of a shepherd’s crook. The girl who dances around the kitchen had taken the unnecessary opportunity to tie a shimming green ribbon into a bow around the sweet’s neck.
“I’m Marshmallow, nice to meet you.”
“Things are all so great here. All the decorations are so sparkly.”
Candy Cane beamed with every word she spoke. She looked around the room with such awe you would assume that she had entered a Cathedral so grand that its silver bells could shake a small town awake on the morning of December 25th. She was loud like a bell. Hollering out positive words in a way that contrasted with the softly crackling fire in the next room over. There was a great deal of her. Not in a literal sense, she was as small as any other piece of candy but she was filling space. She had multiple colors, to make matters more obnoxious the colors swirled. Above all this her shape was strange itself. Why on Earth would a candy ever need a hook?
“Where’s Hot Cocoa?”
“Over there.”
“Oh. Fantastic. That’s why she got me.”
“Why would that be?”
Marshmallow laughed at the piece of candy across from her. She couldn’t imagine why the girl in the kitchen would ever need to purchase anything new to go along with Hot Cocoa.
“It’s all the trend now. Hot cocoa and candy canes just really go together, you know?”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
Candy Cane radiated with pure joy and Marshmallow considered throwing a ceramic reindeer at her. What an absurd thing to say? What else would Hot Cocoa need besides her? It’s always hot cocoa and marshmallows. They have been a team for every winter since she can remember and everything has gone perfectly smooth and wonderfully peaceful. What else could anyone want?
“Well I don’t think anyone here will be in need of your service.” Marshmallow spoke. Her tone dropped its previous cheerful softness.
“What?”
“I actually heard that the nice gingerbread family in the dining room needs some new decor for their house. Maybe you can help with that?”
“That’s not really why I’m here…”
“Well you have no reason to be here. Hot Cocoa has been just fine with me and only me. It should stay that way.”
“I mean it’s very popular right now that I-”
Marshmallow cut Candy Cane off with swiftness and dedication to her cause.
“I don’t care what is popular right now. This is my job. My friend. It’s supposed to be for me.”
Candy Cane falls silent. Her colors remain vibrant but her demeanor shifts slightly. A tenses occupied her expression. Though she was refusing to fill the air with words she kept her attention fixed on Marshmallow. Marshmallow let her gaze conveniently shift away from the cane in front of her. She took this time to stare up at the snowflakes that the girl in the kitchen had cut from blue and white paper and then hung from the kitchen ceiling.
“I didn’t know it was this important.” Candy Cane broke the silence
“Of course it is important. How dare you?”
‘How dare she’ is what Marshmallow kept thinking. How dare she come into this kitchen during the most important time of year and make rude remarks about her purpose.
“Okay maybe I didn’t mean ‘important’.” Candy Cane laughed slightly
This cane can’t take anything seriously? Giggling like she’s opening a present during such a serious conversation.
“What makes it all so special?”
What a strange question to ask someone. Marshmallow couldn’t find what Candy Cane was meaning by all of this. Why wouldn’t it be special was the better question to ask. After all, Hot Cocoa is a staple of the season. It’s special because it is.
“Because he is special.”
“Is he really?’
Marshmallow attempted to pull words from the air to use as her response but none fell into her grasp. Candy Cane took the gap in conversation to continue with her own explanations.
“There’s so many other shining things here. So many other things you could look at.”
“But this is mine.”
“So it’s special?”
Marshmallow softened slightly. She was finally getting this strange sweet to understand her very reasonable and factual perception of this kitchen and this season. Maybe this candy isn’t so irrational and vexing afterall.
“Yes.” Marshmallow let out a sigh of relief “He’s special and if I’m with him I’m special.”
Candy Cane simply laughed again. Laughed like the carolers who stand on the front porch at the most inconvenient times and then flub the lyrics that hold their hymns together. Laughed like the little children who manically toss snowballs at each other on the coldest mornings.
“But he isn’t that special. He’s just chocolate milk.” Candy Cane said
That was true. He was just chocolate milk. How had Marshmallow thought of that? Chocolate milk is around the whole year. There’s nothing that actually makes it unique at this moment in time. Had Marshmallow wasted so much fixation on something that is not even a delicacy? No, of course not.
“It’s like oh” Candy Cane held herself up theatrically “I’m not like other chocolates, I’m warm.”
She vibrantly laughed at her own joke and despite herself, Marshmallow laughed too.
At that moment, Marshmallow realized that it had been the longest time since she had had a friend to laugh with. Of course she had Hot Cocoa but he was all the way up there. All his time, spent lounging in far off places on the top kitchen shelves . Though she is a bit irritating and unnecessarily loud, Candy Cane could perhaps be someone to talk to this Winter.
“Do you prefer tinsel or garland for trees, Candy?” Marshmallow asked.