Salty Chocolate

She was walking on the road. A casual, undisturbed walk with the usual spring in her step missing. She was deeply lost in thought. So much so she could not even acknowledge the fact that she had bumped into a friend. His yelling of her name shook her back to reality. She gave him a broad smile sans the warmth that spread to her eyes. She crossed him and walked on. The steady wind kept rustling her neatly layered hair. She took no notice of it. It was an all consuming thought that she had succumbed to. A draining feeling engulfed her. It didn't matter to her how her surroundings changed. The gray thunder clouds heralding rain were gathering in earnest above her head. But it was nothing compared to the grayness in her mind. As her habit would have it, she kicked her snicker worn feet into the hard marble of the sidewalk. It must have pained but the pain simply eluded her. She didn't know where she was going until she reached. It was then she realised that it was this place that she eventually drown her sorrows in. She had known it intuitively that her legs would carry her here as a simple reflex action. The air was laden with familiar and comforting smell of dark chocolate. She had always nurtured an unhealthy indulgence for chocolate. But today, the sweetness of the chocolate tasted mildly salty. Chocolate gave her the solace no living soul had ever offered. A small crease appeared at the end of her lips suggesting the lines of the dimple when she fully smiled. Funny, she should be reminded of her own theory, what she proudly called, The Chocolate Theory. The waft of thick chocolate smoking always seemed to arouse sanguine feelings in her. And it didn't fail this time too. A sense of calm pervaded her replacing her numbness. Morbid thoughts cleared giving way to clarity. With surgical precision, she dissected the situation at hand. As the skies above cleared, a single ray of bright sunshine hit her broad forehead, hope peered in her heart. She rose with a jolt and onward she marched, the spring in her step back.