sweets world
a little girl on the train is reading a glossy a5 magazine and licking her lips and going "mmmm!". i worry about the contents. my eyesight is poor, but i can see from all the pink and purple that it is probably one of those magazines filled with photographs of dreamy young boy band members and she looks to be no more than six years old. her brother, a harvey fresh looking kid in a big straw hat, is desperate for a peek, but everytime he leans in to look, she draws the magazine to her chest hissing "no!"
"i just wanna seeeee".
"no" she hisses again, "my sweets"
the boy takes a long breath, gets up and stands on his toes to reach the handholds dangling above. then pulling himself up like an olympic gymnast, he draws his knees to his chest, stretches his legs perpendicular, and in a sharp motion, thrusts his legs downwards, his crocs connecting with the girl's magazine which blasts from her hands and skitters across the thin carpeted floor, stopping at my feet.
the girl is screaming and crying and clutching her hurting hand. i give the boy a hard look and bend to pick up the magazine, but when i go to hand it back, the girl is too preoccupied with her screaming and scratching at her brother's dangling legs, and the dad has put down his phone and is shouting too and reaching across the lap of his daughter to catch one of the boy's legs which are kicking about, and he grabs one and gives it a forceful tug but accidentally pulls off one the boy's crocs, breaking the strap and scattering the jibblets across the train station floor. and while they are distracted i decide to have a look.
SWEETS WORLD is the name of the magazine and the cover shows a big crystal dish filled with smarties, gummy bears, candy hearts, sour worms, pineapple lumps, allens snakes, strips of gum and a really big gob stopper - the most thoughtlessly curated candy i have ever seen. the inside pages contain nothing but pictures of lollies and ice creams and cupcakes and jellies and macarons- no recipes or party ideas - just lavish photographs of the things in themselves on mass, the text boxes filled with placeholder text, "ipsum dolor sit amed etc." and at first i think this magazine must be just be a prop for a movie or the kids room in a display home, but the barcode says it is the 85th issue, published this month, and when i check online, i see that Sweets World has been running since for seven years, and no one has questioned its value.
it's really so stupid what we give to our kids as if their minds don't matter one bit, and i am furious about the long existence of Sweets World, but on the walk from the station, i stop at the deli and crouch at the counter to see the tubs of candy below and i look up at the lady and ask for one dollar of chicos and a dollar of strawberry clouds, and then i see the red frogs and say i'll have six of those too and also, maybe a dollar of smarties and one of them chocolate rasberry licorice logs, and oh, three of them rainbow sour straps please, and as i walk home eating through the sweets until my gut feels dizzy and my mouth is is burning and my face is covered in sweat, i dont know what has come over me. i must be inspired by the girl's magazine.
