Taste the Sorrow

What a sad life, to be the lone orange Skittle at the bottom of the plastic pumpkin candy bowl. Slightly squished, her brittle skin cracked, her insides tasteless and dried.

She’d been there since the boy was four. She lay buried while he picked out all the Hershey’s and the Reese’s and those peanut M&M’s -- the good stuff, he said -- working his way down to the lollipops and licorice.

Every Halloween, she hoped maybe he’d notice. He’d reach the bottom of the bowl, shove a sticky finger inside and pry her from her prison. But every year she stayed hidden under Twizzlers until it was too late -- and the pumpkin was returned to the dark hall closet.