A Script for A Confectioner's Almanac of Forgotten Time

Sometimes, when the spring sun hit the old candy shop just right, making the faded green paint almost glow, I felt like I was stepping not just through a door, but through a seam in the fabric of time itself. It wasn't the kind of dramatic, sci-fi rip you read about; it was quieter, like easing into a warm bath. The air outside, even with its hint of fresh rain and burgeoning lilac, felt thin compared to the dense, sugared atmosphere within. I knew, with an almost physical certainty, that the dust motes dancing in the shafts of light inside weren't just ordinary dust. They were particles of forgotten moments, motes of memory, hanging suspended in the humid sweetness. Junior never quite got it. He saw a dusty, old-fashioned shop; I saw a place where time had decided to have a long, slow nap.

"You coming or what, Corey?" Junior's voice, already slightly muffled by the thick wooden door, pulled me back. He stood with his hand on the tarnished brass handle, a half-eaten chocolate bar wrapper crumpled in his other hand. Even now, nearly sixteen, he still had that restless twitch, always needing to be doing, moving, consuming. Me? I liked to just be, especially in places like this. The candy store was my peculiar church, and Agnes, its silent, watchful priestess.

The bell above the door gave a surprisingly clear, singular chime, not the frantic jingle I expected from such an ancient contraption. The sound seemed to hang, then slowly dissipate into the heavy, sweet air. The shop was a narrow rectangle, crammed floor to ceiling with glass jars, wooden barrels, and shelves overflowing with brightly packaged sweets. The walls were still that peculiar shade of green, a colour you didn't see anymore, pulled straight from a faded photograph of the 1970s. It wasn't 'retro' in the deliberate way; it was genuinely old, genuinely forgotten.

And the smell. Oh, the smell. It was a dense, layered aroma of crystallised sugar, old paper, a faint hint of peppermint, and something else – something almost metallic, like pennies left in a damp drawer. Beneath it all, a subtle, almost imperceptible tang. Not unpleasant, exactly, but definitely 'funny', as Junior would put it.

Agnes was behind the counter, as always. Her hair, a wispy cloud of white, was pulled back in a loose bun that defied gravity. She was stooped, her spine curved like a question mark, but her eyes – her eyes were sharp, a startling blue that seemed to hold entire centuries of observation. She didn't look up immediately. She was meticulously arranging a display of liquorice allsorts, her thin fingers moving with a slow, deliberate grace, each movement precise, unhurried. Her apron, a clean but ancient floral pattern, was tied neatly at her waist. She smelled funny too, like old lace and talcum powder, with that same subtle, unidentifiable undertone that clung to the shop itself.

"Afternoon, Agnes," Junior said, already browsing the display of fizzy cola bottles. He always went for the obvious, the brightly coloured, the immediate hit.

Agnes looked up then, her blue eyes fixing on us. A slow smile, like sunlight breaking through clouds, spread across her face, crinkling the corners of her eyes. "Corey. Junior. Back again, are we? Spring has certainly sprung, hasn't it? Everything feels… softer."

She had a voice like rustling paper, soft but clear. "Yes, Agnes," I replied, already drawn to a glass jar filled with striped humbugs. "It feels like it was only last week we were here, but also… a very long time ago."

She chuckled, a dry, papery sound. "Time, my dear, is like molasses in this place. Thick and sweet, and not always moving in a straight line." She paused, her gaze drifting towards the back of the shop, where a shaft of sunlight illuminated a dusty rack of what looked like very old postcards. Her eyes seemed to unfocus for a moment, distant.

Junior, oblivious, rattled a handful of cola bottles into a small, brown paper bag. "You got any of those new sour worms, Agnes? The ones that glow?"

Agnes blinked, her eyes refocusing on Junior. "Glow? No, dear. My worms are quite content not to glow. They prefer their natural, sugary luminescence." She gestured vaguely towards a barrel of gummy worms. "Besides, glowing candy… that feels a bit too much like the future, doesn't it? We keep things here as they should be."

I watched her as she turned to weigh Junior's sweets. Her hand, gnarled with age, moved to the small shelf tucked just beneath the counter's lip. For a fleeting second, her fingers brushed against something small, metallic, hidden from Junior's view but not mine. A glint of silver. A small, dark flask. Her movement was quick, subtle, almost imperceptible, a magician's flick of the wrist. A quick sip, head tilted almost imperceptibly, then the flask was gone, tucked away. She turned back, a faint, almost imperceptible sheen in her bright blue eyes, her smile perhaps a fraction wider, a touch less strained.

"That'll be three pounds and seven pence, dear," she announced, her voice entirely even.

Junior fumbled in his pocket for coins. "You know, Agnes, your shop feels like it's from a completely different world. My mum says it's like stepping into her granny's day, but even older than that."

Agnes nodded, her gaze sweeping over the jars of candies. "Different world? Perhaps. Or perhaps this world simply prefers to remember things in a particular way. Like these." She pointed to a shelf of brightly coloured rock candy sticks. "Still the same sugar, the same dyes, the same stickiness. But the children who bought them fifty years ago? They're grandmothers now, if they're still around. The candy stays, the people… well, they drift."

The Unfolding Sugar Maps

I picked up a clear cellophane bag of pear drops, their pale yellow and pink shapes like miniature, translucent jewels. The sugar was good here, real sugar, not the processed, ersatz stuff that filled the supermarket aisles. It had a weight to it, a historical gravity. Each piece felt like it had been carefully crafted, not churned out by some anonymous machine.

"What's your favourite, Agnes?" I asked, suddenly curious.

She paused, her gaze again distant, focused on something beyond the walls. "Favourite?" she murmured, as if tasting the word. "I suppose… I suppose it changes, with the spring. Some years, it's the rhubarb and custard. Other years, the lemon bonbons. This year, I find myself rather fond of… the quiet ones. The ones that don't shout."

"Like what?" Junior piped up, finally done with his cola bottles, already reaching for a bag of milk chocolate buttons.

Agnes gave a small, almost secretive smile. "Come round here, both of you." She beckoned us closer to the counter, her eyes twinkling. "I have something… not on the usual menu. Something for moments like these."

Junior exchanged a look with me, a hint of 'what now?' in his eyes, but he complied, shuffling along the narrow aisle. Agnes reached beneath the counter, not for the flask this time, but for a small, ornate wooden box, its surface polished smooth by countless years of handling.

She opened it with a delicate click. Inside, nestled on a bed of faded velvet, were three pieces of candy. They were unlike anything I'd ever seen. Roughly spherical, a dull, earthy brown, almost like tiny, petrified nuts. They didn't gleam or sparkle. They held no bright colours. They just sat there, unassuming, silent.

"These," Agnes whispered, her voice a little softer, a little more fragile, "are for when the world gets too loud. For when you need to remember the quiet hum of things. They are… unnamed. Their flavour is a memory, a suggestion, not a definition."

She offered one to me first. The surface was slightly rough, like dried earth. I took it, the warmth of her fingers lingering for a moment on mine. Then she offered one to Junior, who eyed it suspiciously. "They look like old pebbles, Agnes."

"They do, don't they?" she agreed, a faint tremor in her voice. "But sometimes, the most unassuming things hold the greatest stories." She took the third one for herself, holding it between her thumb and forefinger, her gaze distant once more.

"Go on," she urged me, her voice now a little firmer. "Try it. Let it unfold."

I placed the strange candy in my mouth. It was hard, resisting the initial bite. There was no immediate burst of flavour, no sugary explosion. Instead, it was a slow, subtle awakening. First, a faint earthiness, like damp soil after a spring rain. Then, a hint of something green, like crushed leaves, and a phantom sweetness that wasn't sugar, but more akin to the memory of honey. It dissolved slowly, deliberately, on my tongue, and as it did, a strange sensation washed over me.

It wasn't a taste, not really. It was a feeling. A feeling of sitting in a sun-dappled field, the grass cool beneath my palms, a gentle breeze rustling through distant trees. A sense of quiet contentment, of the world breathing slowly around me. I felt a pang of nostalgia for something I couldn't quite place, a memory that wasn't mine, yet felt utterly familiar.

"What is this?" I mumbled, the words thick with the dissolving candy.

Junior, who had reluctantly put his own candy in his mouth, suddenly gasped. His eyes, usually so quick and darting, were wide, fixed on some unseen point beyond the shop window. "I… I remember this!" he choked out, his voice thick with emotion. "Running… across a field… and the smell of… of warm hay. And laughing. I was laughing."

Agnes watched us, her blue eyes bright, almost luminous, and her own strange candy slowly dissolving on her tongue. A single, almost invisible tear traced a path down one of her weathered cheeks. "Yes," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "The laughter. The warmth. That's it, isn't it? Before… before everything became so terribly loud."

The air in the shop seemed to thicken, the light subtly shifting, elongating the shadows. The green walls deepened, becoming more vibrant, then fading again. The smell of sugar intensified, overwhelming, then softened to a gentle breath. For a moment, the world outside the shop's glass front, with its cars and people and insistent modern hum, seemed utterly to vanish. There was only the three of us, suspended in the amber glow of the old candy store, sharing a memory that was both ancient and utterly new, a forgotten spring day brought back by a single, peculiar piece of sugar.

Agnes extended a gnarled hand and gently touched my arm. Her skin was dry, papery, but a surprising warmth emanated from her touch. "Some things, Corey, are best kept close. Held tight. Especially the quiet ones." Her gaze flickered to the small space beneath the counter, then back to my face, a silent, knowing look passing between us. The candy had completely dissolved now, leaving only a faint sweetness, a faint echo of that sun-drenched field, and an insistent question in its wake.

Junior, still a little dazed, blinked. "Agnes… what *was* that?"

She merely smiled, a profound, unreadable expression on her face. Her eyes held the glint of secrets, the wisdom of ages, and a profound, almost wistful sorrow. The scent of sugar and old paper filled the space, and the bell above the door, entirely of its own accord, gave another soft, singular chime, as if closing a chapter, or perhaps, simply pausing the unending story.