I Also Have a Candy Dream

I was back at home, except the kitchen was lit much better than usual. All the reflective surfaces hurt my eyes to look at them, and the heat from the ceiling was incredible. I thought about Egyptians, how they put a cone of wax on their heads to melt, drip and perfume their hair over the course of an evening. I thought my hair might melt, too.

My father was in the living room, assembling a large Erector Set model - some huge insect or crustacean with moving legs and antennae - on a rickety folding picnic table we threw away years ago. It was dark, except for the TV and parts of the model, which glowed.

He had given me a recipe to make baked candy bars. It was on an index card, yellowed with age and stained with, presumably, candy bar goo. I thought that I read it, though I don't remember reading it.

In the refrigerator, there were frozen Three Musketeers bars. I took them out of the freezer and carefully put them on the racks in the oven. One fell through the space in the racks anyway. I reached down and picked it up, but my hand started to melt. It was like pushing an ice cube into a stream of hot water, or against the hot faucet.

It didn't hurt. I put the candy bar back on the rack and closed the door.

Running my arm under cold water, I was able to sculpt my hand back into shape.

Time passed. I looked in on the candy bars, but they were not baked. Probably. I realized I didn't know how I'd be able to tell when they were done. I looked at the recipe again - good God! I was supposed to have taken them out of the wrappers and put them on a cookie sheet! How could I have been so stupid to have misread the directions?

I opened the oven. The candy bars, in their wrappers, had inflated almost to the size of baguettes. I grabbed them and put them on the counter, then pricked one with the cake tester.

It EXPLODED. The wrapper flew into oblivion, but the candy bar within was still frozen. I popped the rest, then put the candy bars on the cookie sheet. Then I reread the recipe. It said I needed to grease the cookie sheet, so I took them off and greased it with Crisco.

Then I put the candy bars back on the sheet and put it back into the oven.

I went into the other room to wait until the candy bars were done. The robot insect was the size of a footstool, skittering around on the floor. It walked very well, with articulated legs. My father had put the table away and was just watching the robot explore the living room.

The robot was walking with intent. It would sometimes stop before it encountered an obstacle. Its antennae would move around it, exploring, while the lights in its body and legs blinked on and off in the darkness. Then it would go around the obstacle, or kick it aside. My father was drinking a bottle of hard cider and just beaming - his smile lines were all crinkly and he had the goofy little grin he gets when he's proud or amused.

I went back into the kitchen. Opening up the oven, I saw that the candy bars had grown again, to about three times their original size. The outside was a flaky dark beige, and they seemed to be topped with chocolate sprinkles and chopped green onions. Puddled around them was some liquid that looked and smelled like a dark red-brown combination of enchilada sauce and chocolate syrup.

I pulled the cookie sheet out with a potholder. The candy bars also weighed a lot more than they had originally, but they did smell good.