Chocolate-Inspired Flash Fiction

Bonbons

Your call is important to us.

Yeah, right. While I waited, I sipped my egg cream which, by the way, has neither egg nor cream, but it has chocolate, so –

“Aunt Lulu’s Famous Chocolates. My name is Imelda. How may I help you today?”

“I bought one of your seventy-percent dark chocolate Easter eggs.”

“My favorite! Don’t you love ’em?”

“Usually.”

“Was there a problem with the item, ma’am?”

“The other thirty percent was a finger.”

Imelda put me on hold to connect to Jason, her supervisor. Again, I waited, Hoovering up the dregs of my egg cream. Any day now.

“Madame,” Jason said, his tone concerned though annoyingly defensive. “I’m sorry to hear you’ve reported a negative experience, but I can assure you that we never put fingers in our Easter eggs.”

“Well, it wasn’t nougat.”

“If I may ask, was it a human finger?”

“Is there another kind?”

“We need to be accurate.”

“Look, Jason, you can imagine the level of distress this has caused me. Chomping into a finger when you think it’s a chocolate egg is highly disconcerting. I haven’t been able to eat or sleep, and ––”

“I commiserate with you, believe me! However, to resolve this issue to your satisfaction, we do require you to send us the finger. Standard policy. We’ll pay for shipping, of course.”

“Never mind, I’ll just contact the police and my lawyer.”

“Please, madame. There’s no need to get hasty. What if you were to simply text us a photo in order for us to consider how best to compensate you for your…unpleasantness?”

“You don’t want me to do that.”

“Why not?”

“These days, AI can generate a perfect virtual image of a finger, and you wouldn’t know the difference, so why bother? Jason, if you don’t trust me ––”

“May I put you on hold for a moment?”

“Of course.”

“Raindrops fallin’ on my head…” I was all too familiar with the tape loop endurance test. It must have gradually dawned on Jason that he couldn’t outlast me. He was back in less than ten minutes.

“I personally apologize for your recent experience,” he said. “Would you accept a year’s supply of our Deluxe Truffle Bonbons as our way of saying how much we value customers such as yourself?”

“That’s so kind of you, Jason. May I make a counteroffer?”

After a reasonable period of haggling, I came away minus the year’s supply but with a five-thousand-dollar check.

“Is there anything else we can help you with today?”

“No, that’s all, Jason. Thank you for being proactive.”

I hung up, did my next online search, and punched in a phone number. I listened to the menu: If you are experiencing a problem, press 5.

“Serendipity Fudge Company. How may we help you today?”

###

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