Candy Wrapper Quotes

A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.

Are you out of your candy wrapper?

Since I didn't have a candy wrapper to help me with the bad connection I was about to have, I resorted to using vocal sound effects. When Agent Carson picked up, I started my performance. "Agent... Agent Carson," I said, panting into the phone. "Yes, Charley." She seemed unimpressed, but I wasn't about to stop now. "I--I know who the kshshshshshsh are." "I'm a little busy right now, Davidson. What is a Ksh, and why do I care?" "I'm sorry. My kshshsh... is kshshsh... ing." I repeat. What is a Ksh? And why do I care if it is ksh-ing?" She was a tough one. I knew I should have waited and bought a Butterfinger at the Jug-N-Chug. Those wrappers crakled like Rice Krispies on a Saturday morning. "You aren't listeni--kshshsh." "You're really bad at this." "Bank ro-ksh-ers. I know who they kshshsh." "Charley, if you don't cut this crap out." I hung up and turned off my phone before she could figure out what I was trying not to tell her and call back.

After a snowstorm is the best time to be in the woods, because all the empty beer and soda cans and candy wrappers disappear, and you don't have to try as hard to be in another time. Plus there's just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on.

He wagged his finger in my face. "You're not SUPPOSED to do anything. YOU'RE the one trying to change ME. Remember? As far as I'M concerned, YOU can do anything you want." "Except criticize you." "Hey," he said, "if that's how you want to spend your life, getting on my case"--he threw out his arms--"be my guest." He turned his deep blue eyes on me. "And anyway--" He let it hang there. He was smirking. Suddenly I felt as if I were on roller skates. "What?" "I know why you're doing it." I stopped. He walked on. "Doing what?" I said. "What? Why?" I think I was babbling. He flipped his answer as blithely as a candy wrapper over his shoulder: "You know.

But I can think of nothing on earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night, which, for me, was ten to fifteen pounds of candy, a riot of colored wrappers and hopeful fonts,snub-nosed chocolate bars and SweeTARTS, the seductive rattle of Jujyfruits and Good & Plenty and lollipopsticks all akimbo, the foli ends of mini LifeSavers packs twinkling like dimes, and a thick sugary perfume rising up from the pillowcase.

You can keep a piece of candy in its wrapper for up to twenty years. After that, it turns into a hideous black goo.

Candy in a wrapper, a diamond ring in a box—these analogies are commonly used in Egypt and other countries to try to convince women of the value of veiling. They compare women to objects that are precious but devalued by exposure, objects that need to be hidden, protected, and secured. When it comes to what are described as the Islamic restrictions on women’s dress, women are never simply women. There

He loved physical books with the same avidity other people loved horses or wine or prog rock. He'd never really warmed to ebooks because they seemed to reduce a book to a computer file, and computer files were disposable things, things you never really owned. He had no emails from ten years ago but still owned every book he bought that year. Besides, what was more perfect an object than a book? The different rags of paper, smooth or rough under your fingers. The edge of the page pressed into your thumbprint as you turned a new chapter. The way your bookmark - fancy, modest, scrap paper, candy wrapper - moved through the width of it, marking your progress, a little further each time you folded it shut.

Ever since elementary school, I've been making beauty out of everyday things - candy wrappers, pages of a newspaper, receipts, rip-outs from magazines. I cut and tear, arrange and rearrange, and glue them down, morphing them into something no one else thought they could be. Like me. I'm ordinary too. The only thing fancy about me is my name: Jade. But I am not precious like the gem. There is nothing exquisite about my life. It's mine though, so I'm going to make something out of it. -Jade

I took the candy wrappers shamefacedly, and felt the extra ten pounds sag around my middle as I held these flags of defeat. Я стыдливо взял конфетные обертки — эти свидетельства моего поражения, — чувствуя, как еще десять лишних фунтов нарастают у меня на боках.

A picnic. Imagine: a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car pulls off the road into the meadow and unloads young men, bottles, picnic baskets, girls, transistor radios, cameras … A fire is lit, tents are pitched, music is played. And in the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that were watching the whole night in horror crawl out of their shelters. And what do they see? An oil spill, a gasoline puddle, old spark plugs and oil filters strewn about … Scattered rags, burnt-out bulbs, someone has dropped a monkey wrench. The wheels have tracked mud from some godforsaken swamp … and, of course, there are the remains of the campfire, apple cores, candy wrappers, tins, bottles, someone’s handkerchief, someone’s penknife, old ragged newspapers, coins, wilted flowers from another meadow …” “I get it,” said Noonan. “A roadside picnic.

You tore my panties off,” she choked, shocked by his ardor. “Mmmmm, can’t eat your candy if it’s still in the wrapper, darlin’,” he returned,

A walk is exploring surfaces and textures with finger, toe, and—yuck—tongue; standing still and seeing who or what comes by; trying out different forms of locomotion (among them running, marching, high-kicking, galloping, scooting, projectile falling, spinning, and noisy shuffling). It is archeology: exploring the bit of discarded candy wrapper; collecting a fistful of pebbles and a twig and a torn corner of a paperback; swishing dirt back and forth along the ground. It is stopping to admire the murmuring of the breeze in the trees; locating the source of the bird’s song; pointing. Pointing!— using the arm to extend one’s fallen gaze so someone else can see what you’ve seen. It is a time of sharing. On our block,

Jamie spied a Hershey's almond bar still in its wrapper lying in the corner of the landing. He picked it up and tore open one corner. "Was it bitten into?" asked Claudia. "No," Jamie smiled. "Want half?" "You better not touch it," Claudia warned. "It's probably poisoned or filled with marijuana, so you'll eat it and become either dead or a dope addict". Jamie was irritated. "Couldn't it just happen that someone dropped it?" "I doubt that. Who would drop a whole candy bar and not know it? That's like leaving a statue in a taxi".

Then he has about fifty things that require sniffing and some items he has to stop and chew, like a candy wrapper and a piece of somebody’s shoe. I take these things away from him and he briefly considers whether we know each other well enough for me to take those kinds of liberties.

Clutter attracts clutter. If you drop the mail on the kitchen counter, someone else is going to find it natural to leave his keys there. A dresser with receipts is also going to collect coins. A purse dropped in the entry is soon going to be joined by shoes and gloves. An empty soda can on the end table usually winds up with a few candy wrappers next to it.

It’s the candy, not the wrapper, that matters. And it’s the person you live with, not their good looks.

If I took a candy bar, ripped off the wrapper, ate the candy bar, and pinned the wrapper to the wall, is that art, performance art, both, or neither?

surrounded by candy and wrappers, as though a chocolate storm had hit.

Besides, what was more perfect an object than a book? The different rags of paper, smooth or rough under your fingers. The edge of the page pressed into your thumbprint as you turned a new chapter. The way your bookmark -fancy, modest, scrap paper, candy wrapper -moved through the width of it, marking your progress, a little further each time you folded it shut.

Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations. The stretch of Hudson Street where I live is each day the scene of an intricate sidewalk ballet. I make my own first entrance into it a little after eight when I put out my garbage gcan, surely a prosaic occupation, but I enjoy my part, my little clang, as the junior droves of junior high school students walk by the center of the stage dropping candy wrapper. (How do they eat so much candy so early in the morning?) While I sweep up the wrappers I watch the other rituals of the morning: Mr Halpert unlocking the laundry's handcart from its mooring to a cellar door, Joe Cornacchia's son-in-law stacking out the empty crates from the delicatessen, the barber bringing out his sidewalk folding chair, Mr. Goldstein arranging the coils of wire which proclaim the hardware store is open, the wife of the tenement's super intendent depositing her chunky three-year-old with a toy mandolin on the stoop, the vantage point from which he is learning English his mother cannot speak. Now the primary childrren, heading for St. Luke's, dribble through the south; the children from St. Veronica\s cross, heading to the west, and the children from P.S 41, heading toward the east. Two new entrances are made from the wings: well-dressed and even elegant women and men with brief cases emerge from doorways and side streets. Most of these are heading for the bus and subways, but some hover on the curbs, stopping taxis which have miraculously appeared at the right moment, for the taxis are part of a wider morning ritual: having dropped passengers from midtown in the downtown financial district, they are now bringing downtowners up tow midtown. Simultaneously, numbers of women in housedresses have emerged and as they crisscross with one another they pause for quick conversations that sound with laughter or joint indignation, never, it seems, anything in between. It is time for me to hurry to work too, and I exchange my ritual farewell with Mr. Lofaro, the short, thick bodied, white-aproned fruit man who stands outside his doorway a little up the street, his arms folded, his feet planted, looking solid as the earth itself. We nod; we each glance quickly up and down the street, then look back at eachother and smile. We have done this many a morning for more than ten years, and we both know what it means: all is well. The heart of the day ballet I seldom see, because part off the nature of it is that working people who live there, like me, are mostly gone, filling the roles of strangers on other sidewalks. But from days off, I know enough to know that it becomes more and more intricate. Longshoremen who are not working that day gather at the White Horse or the Ideal or the International for beer and conversation. The executives and business lunchers from the industries just to the west throng the Dorgene restaurant and the Lion's Head coffee house; meat market workers and communication scientists fill the bakery lunchroom.

It was a dead hole, smelling of synthetic leather and disinfectant, both of which odors seemed to emanate from the torn scratched material of the seats that lined the three walls. It smelled of the tobacco ashes which had flooded the two standing metal ashtrays. On the chromium lip of one, a cigar butt gleamed wetly like a chewed piece of beef. There was the smell of peanut shells and of the waxy candy wrappers that littered the floor, the smell of old newspapers, dry, inky, smothering and faintly like a urinal, the smell of sweat from armpits and groins and backs and faces, pouring out and drying up in the lifeless air, the smell of clothes—cleaning fluids imbedded in fabric and blooming horribly in the warm sweetish air, picking at the nostrils like thorns—all the exudations of the human flesh, a bouquet of animal being, flowing out, drying up, but leaving a peculiar and ineradicable odor of despair in the room as though chemistry was transformed into spirit, an ascension of a kind, …Light issuing from spotlights in the ceiling was sour and blinding like a sick breath. There was in that room an underlying confusion in the function of the senses. Smell became color, color became smell. Mute started at mute so intently they might have been listening with their eyes, and hearing grew preternaturally acute, yet waited only for the familiar syllables of surnames. Taste died, mouth opened in the negative drowsiness of waiting.

Don’t you wish somebody came up to you today and gave you a scrapbook called ‘The Life of Leo Borlock’? And it’s a record, like a journal, of what you did on such-and-such a date when you were little. From the days you can’t remember anymore. And there’s pictures, and even stuff that you dropped or threw away, like a candy wrapper. And it was all done by some neighbor across the street, and you didn’t even know she was doing it. Don’t you think when you’re fifty or sixty you’d give a fortune to have such a thing?

I offer him a chocolate from the glass candy dish my admin insisted I needed. He swallows it, wrapper and all, then grabs the bowl and drinks the rest down. I’ve mentioned I missed these guys, haven’t I? “You’re my fucking hero,” I tell Ares. He grunts and eyes the candy dish like he’s contemplating taking a bite of it too.

Tommy, Kate and Jesse emerged from the cab, and were hit instantly by the smell of New Jersey. The scent was like something caught between the Fulton Fish Market on a hot summer day and mildewed newspaper. Their thick-bearded driver had followed Jesse’s explicit directions without fault, but he was still a little tentative behind the wheel. After four other cabbies on Broadway said, “I no go Jersey,” (and after Tommy subsequently responded with, “I don’t blame you pal”), they finally found a driver who reluctantly agreed to take them to the once-familiar warehouse. The three of them were so calm and stiff along the way; the only signs of life in the taxi seemed to be the empty coffee cups and candy wrappers sliding back and forth across the dashboard.

I’ve sprained it.” “Oh no! Let me see.” The receptionist jumped up from behind her desk. As she bent over Bess’s ankle, she didn’t notice Bess wink at Nancy. “If I could just get some ice,” Bess said, with a weak smile that looked totally convincing. The receptionist nodded. “Of course. We’ve got ice in our break area at the back of the office,” she said. “Here, let me help you.” Great! thought Nancy. Now, if I can just sneak into Bruce’s office . . . “I’ll use my cell phone to call the doctor,” she fibbed. She pulled her cell phone from her backpack. As the receptionist helped Bess down the hall, Nancy slipped quietly into the office. Quick, she thought. Shoving the phone back in her pack, she closed the door behind her and inspected the room. There’s not much time. She saw a candy-filled bowl on the desk. Each candy had a bright red wrapper marked with a distinctive and familiar white zigzag. That clinches it, Nancy thought. Bruce had to be the person she and Bess had chased the night before. Still, she knew she had to find more concrete proof linking him to the vandalism. She set her pack on the floor next to the desk and

PERCY AND PADFOOT Harry was the first to awake in his dormitory next morning. He lay for a moment watching dust swirl in the chink of sunlight falling through the gap in his four-poster’s hangings and savored the thought that it was Saturday. The first week of term seemed to have dragged on forever, like one gigantic History of Magic lesson. Judging by the sleepy silence and the freshly minted look of that beam of sunlight, it was just after daybreak. He pulled open the curtains around his bed, got up, and started to dress. The only sound apart from the distant twittering of birds was the slow, deep breathing of his fellow Gryffindors. He opened his schoolbag carefully, pulled out parchment and quill, and headed out of the dormitory for the common room. Making straight for his favorite squashy old armchair beside the now extinct fire, Harry settled himself down comfortably and unrolled his parchment while looking around the room. The detritus of crumpled-up bits of parchment, old Gobstones, empty ingredient jars, and candy wrappers that usually covered the common room at the end of each day was gone, as were all Hermione’s elf hats. Wondering vaguely how many elves had now been set free whether they wanted to be or not, Harry uncorked his ink bottle, dipped his quill into it,

I do not need a ring. I tried marriage before, as many know. Let me state here that Tom Dennis was a good, decent man who treated me gently and, when I asked, he let me go. I do believe he loved me. But my fiancé was no easy roommate, leaving glasses on wood tables (wood tables, dear reader!) and dropping socks and candy wrappers whenever they ceased being of immediate use; he became like those beachgoers who assume their litter will go out with the tide. I should have known from this that my relationship was in some trouble. But I knew all couples had these fights, and I assumed they were not a detour from love but its bumpy path. So imagine my surprise when (Tom Dennis far in the rearview mirror) I moved into the Shack with Less and this new roommate began to exhibit the same tendencies—socks on the floor, underwear behind the bathroom door, unwashed plates—and, reader, I didn’t care at all! I remember making the bed and finding underneath his pillow a mushroom-like profusion of tissues (for his morning nose-blow) and being filled with…not rage, but tenderness! With Tom Dennis, it was a chore I was willing to bear. With Less—I did not care at all. I stared at those tissues, stupefied. I did not care at all. The difference, you see, dear reader, is that I love him. How do I put it? He is not the best, God knows. He is not the best. But he is the best I ever had. Because to love someone ridiculous is to understand something deep and true about the world. That up close it makes no sense. Those of you who choose sensible people may feel secure, but I think you water your wine; the wonder of life is in its small absurdities, so easily overlooked. And if you have not shared somebody’s tilted view of the horizon (which is the actual world), tell me: what have you really seen?

So, about your classes,” said Doug. “I put in the requirements already. History of Woodsmen and Pirates, Safety Rules for the Internet, and”—he cleared his throat—“Remedial Goodness 101.” “Let me guess...” said Mal. She popped a piece of candy into her mouth. “New class?” Doug nodded sheepishly. “Come on, guys,” Mal said, dropping the wrapper on the floor. “Let’s go find our dorms.” She started up a flight of stairs. Carlos, Jay, and Evie followed her. “Oh! Uh, yeah, your dorms are that way, guys,” said Doug, pointing in the opposite direction. As Mal and her friends came back down the stairs and headed in the direction he indicated, Doug hung back, counting through the dwarves again. “Dopey, Doc, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, and...” “Sneezy,” said Carlos, passing him and ascending the opposite staircase. Doug sighed and looked at the ceiling. Upstairs, Mal and Evie opened the door to their dorm room. It was light and airy and dappled in sunlight. The white canopy beds were covered with pink pillows, and flowery curtains fluttered gently in the fresh breeze from the open windows. Evie’s eyes widened with delight as Mal’s narrowed in horror. “Wow,” said Evie. “This place is so amazing—” “Gross,” said Mal. “I know, right?” said Evie, changing her tune. “Amazingly gross. Ew!” When Mal wasn’t looking, Evie couldn’t help giving a silent gasp of joy at her new crib. “I am going to need some serious sunscreen,” said Mal, arms crossed. “Yeah,” said Evie. “E,” said Mal, pointing to the windows. She closed the curtains as Evie moved to other windows in the room and did the same, plunging the dorm into darkness. “Whoa!” said Mal. “That is much better.

A school bus is many things. A school bus is a substitute for a limousine. More class. A school bus is a classroom with a substitute teacher. A school bus is the students' version of a teachers' lounge. A school bus is the principal's desk. A school bus is the nurse's cot. A school bus is an office with all the phones ringing. A school bus is a command center. A school bus is a pillow fort that rolls. A school bus is a tank reshaped- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a science lab- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a safe zone. A school bus is a war zone. A school bus is a concert hall. A school bus is a food court. A school bus is a court of law, all judges, all jury. A school bus is a magic show full of disappearing acts. Saw someone in half. Pick a card, any card. Pass it on to the person next to you. He like you. She like you. K-i-s-s-i . . . s-s-i-p-p-i is only funny on a school bus. A school bus is a stage. A school bus is a stage play. A school bus is a spelling bee. A speaking bee. A get your hand out of my face bee. A your breath smell like sour turnips bee. A you don't even know what a turnip bee is. A maybe not, but I know what a turn up is and your breath smell all the way turnt up bee. A school bus is a bumblebee, buzzing around with a bunch of stingers on the inside of it. Windows for wings that flutter up and down like the windows inside Chinese restaurants and post offices in neighborhoods where school bus is a book of stamps. Passing mail through windows. Notes in the form of candy wrappers telling the street something sweet came by. Notes in the form of sneaky middle fingers. Notes in the form of fingers pointing at the world zooming by. A school bus is a paintbrush painting the world a blurry brushstroke. A school bus is also wet paint. Good for adding an extra coat, but it will dirty you if you lean against it, if you get too comfortable. A school bus is a reclining chair. In the kitchen. Nothing cool about it but makes perfect sense. A school bus is a dirty fridge. A school bus is cheese. A school bus is a ketchup packet with a tiny hole in it. Left on the seat. A plastic fork-knife-spoon. A paper tube around a straw. That straw will puncture the lid on things, make the world drink something with some fizz and fight. Something delightful and uncomfortable. Something that will stain. And cause gas. A school bus is a fast food joint with extra value and no food. Order taken. Take a number. Send a text to the person sitting next to you. There is so much trouble to get into. Have you ever thought about opening the back door? My mother not home till five thirty. I can't. I got dance practice at four. A school bus is a talent show. I got dance practice right now. On this bus. A school bus is a microphone. A beat machine. A recording booth. A school bus is a horn section. A rhythm section. An orchestra pit. A balcony to shot paper ball three-pointers from. A school bus is a basketball court. A football stadium. A soccer field. Sometimes a boxing ring. A school bus is a movie set. Actors, directors, producers, script. Scenes. Settings. Motivations. Action! Cut. Your fake tears look real. These are real tears. But I thought we were making a comedy. A school bus is a misunderstanding. A school bus is a masterpiece that everyone pretends to understand. A school bus is the mountain range behind Mona Lisa. The Sphinx's nose. An unknown wonder of the world. An unknown wonder to Canton Post, who heard bus riders talk about their journeys to and from school. But to Canton, a school bus is also a cannonball. A thing that almost destroyed him. Almost made him motherless.

I was not above filching empty candy bar wrappers from trash bins at the park or picking up the back cards of batteries from store parking lots. My children all sported Hershey shirts but ate very few of the required candy bars themselves to get them. Trips to the pool were the most rewarding, where candy was sold at the concession stand and the trash receptacles were overflowing with wrappers. On neighborhood trash day, the children and I walked up and down the alleys, where we confiscated extra Pampers points to send in for savings bonds and toys. Even the tennis shoes my children wore on these jaunts were obtained free from the Huggies diaper company.

The floor was littered with paper cups and candy wrappers and cigarette butts and other teenager droppings. I saw a used condom under my shoe.

Not that I don't treat myself to a Papaya King hotdog sometimes, or maybe a falafel sandwich from a street vendor. And occasionally Gus will take me somewhere nice to "develop my palate," but that's rare. Though I can't afford anything sold at them, I do love wandering through the fancy gourmet markets, especially the one at Bloomingdale's. That place is so amazing, Meemaw. You have never seen so much good stuff in one place. I looked for Schrafft's when I first got here- wanting to eat a butterscotch sundae like the one you told me about- but I think they've all shut down. Mostly I shop at this really cheap grocery store I found in Spanish Harlem. They sell cheap cuts of meat- oxtail, trotters, and pigs' ears- as well as all varieties of offal. (I always think of you, Meemaw, when eating livers, think of you eating them every Sunday after church at The Colonnade.) I like to poke around the Asian markets, too, bringing home gingerroot, lemongrass, fish sauce, dehydrated shrimp, wonton wrappers, dozens of different chilies, and soft little candies wrapped in rice paper that dissolves in your mouth. As a special treat I go to the green market in Union Square on the weekends- which is a farmer's market smack-dab in the middle of downtown. Even though I really can't afford the produce, I'll often splurge anyway, arriving home with one or two perfect things- carrots the color of rubies with bright springy tops, or a little bag of fingerling potatoes, their skins delicate and golden.

Her mother had taught her never to judge a candy by its wrapper—you have to actually unwrap it to know what you’ve got.

Now, there are parents who would not raid their children’s stash, and they are called weirdos or anorexic. What would you do if you had a bag of mini chocolate bars in your house? Let your kids eat it? Throw it away? I’m pretty sure throwing away candy is a crime in some states. Let’s be serious, you would eat the candy. You would eat the candy to save your children’s lives. It’s a heroic action, actually. (By the way, I’m not eating all of my children’s candy. When I pilfer their Halloween bags every year, I take only the Snickers, Reese’s, and Heath Bars. I thoughtfully leave them the Now and Laters, Wax Lips, and the wrappers. I’m not a criminal.)

Back then she used to hide from her mother in the secret space just to worry her, but now she stocked it with magazines, paperback romances and sweets. Lots and lots of sweets. Moonpies and pecan rolls, Chick-O-Sticks and Cow Tales, Caramel Creams and Squirrel Nut Zippers, Red Hots and Bit-O-Honey, boxes upon boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes. The space had a comforting smell to it, like Halloween, like sugar and chocolate and crisp plastic wrappers.

Sophie, come here,' Mike said, and led her upstairs and into a large bedroom. A Greek rug covered the bed; a Mexican ceramic horse stood in front of the fireplace. On one of the bedside tables were piled paperback detective stories in their penny candy wrapper covers. 'Who reads those? You or Flo?' 'Me,' he replied, and he sighed and looked winsome. They're good for me. They ride roughshod over what I live with. Potent men. Palpitating women . . . a murderer's mind laid out like the contents of a child's pencil box.' 'You aren't reading the right ones.' 'The new ones are the old ones. That false complexity is just another kind of pencil box.

she collects—lizards and beetles and flowers and bottle caps and stacks and stacks of candy wrappers and American Girl dolls,

Our garage is filled floor to ceiling with stuff. Stacks of plastic bins are filled with old papers and receipts and baby clothes and toys and tangled jewelry and journals and Christmas decorations and old candy bar wrappers and expired makeup and empty shampoo bottles and broken mug pieces in Ziploc bags.

Gorillas get by just fine without learning how to spell. All those endless letters, those sticks and circles and zigzags, filling up books and magazines, billboards and candy wrappers. Words. Humans love their words.

Instead of the old punishing puritanical moralisms about dropping litter on the street, we need a new and enjoyable animism that children would be the first to understand. “Don’t throw that candy wrapper on the street”—not because it’s dirty or bad manners; not because it’s wrong; not because “what if everybody did that?”—but instead “because your candy wrapper doesn’t want to lie around in the gutter or be stepped on; it wants to be in the trash basket along with all its friends.” When things are not properly buried, cremated or composted, could their souls remain as haunting and poisoning ghosts endangering the community, especially the most vulnerable, the children? Pollution is not only chemical and radioactive. There is psychological pollution, too.

A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out of the car carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Gas and oil spilled on the grass. Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around. Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind. Oil slicks on the pond. And of course, the usual mess -- apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow." "I see. A roadside picnic.

lady who smashed me. She reaches into her giant purse and searches around inside for a really long time. I hear lots of rattling around in there. A candy wrapper falls to the floor. Finally, she finds what she’s looking for. A dollar bill. “Here, take a dollar, and you’ll forget all about your

As the mother of a small boy, she had developed a bad habit of carrying a little of everything in her purse, not to mention all the little treasures that Jeremy had given her—pretty rocks, a wilted violet, a ring he’d made from braided pine needles. The collection was a junky-looking mess. When the stranger picked up an unwrapped peppermint candy with more hair on it than stripes, Chloe wished the floor planks would separate and swallow her. His hard mouth twitched as he dropped the candy back in her purse along with an emergency tampon whose wrapper had nearly disintegrated.

- and the mocking realization that money was just colorful crumpled paper, hardly different from a candy wrapper, the market itself little more than a casino.

the streets outside full of the silent traffic of darting candy bar wrappers

bent under the April sun and into the bitter April wind, jackets flapping and eyes squinting, or else skirts pressed to the backs of legs and jacket hems pressed to bottoms. And trailing them, outrunning them, skittering along the gutter and the sidewalk and the low gray steps of the church, banging into ankles and knees and one another, scraps of paper, newspapers, candy wrappers, what else?—office memos? shopping

bent under the April sun and into the bitter April wind, jackets flapping and eyes squinting, or else skirts pressed to the backs of legs and jacket hems pressed to bottoms. And trailing them, outrunning them, skittering along the gutter and the sidewalk and the low gray steps of the church, banging into ankles and knees and one another, scraps of paper, newspapers, candy wrappers, what else?—office memos? shopping lists? The

Why, especially the street sweepers! Those unsung few who rise at dawn and trod the empty avenues gathering up the refuse of the era. Not simply the matchbooks, candy wrappers, and ticket stubs, mind you; but the newspapers, journals, and pamphlets; the catechisms and hymnals, histories and memoirs; the contracts, deeds, and titles; the treaties and constitutions and all Ten Commandments. Sweep on, street sweepers! Sweep until the cobblestones of Russia glitter like gold!]

A picnic. Imagine: a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car pulls off the road into the meadow and unloads young men, bottles, picnic baskets, girls, transistor radios, cameras … A fire is lit, tents are pitched, music is played. And in the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that were watching the whole night in horror crawl out of their shelters. And what do they see? An oil spill, a gasoline puddle, old spark plugs and oil filters strewn about … Scattered rags, burntout bulbs, someone has dropped a monkey wrench. The wheels have tracked mud from some godforsaken swamp … and, of course, there are the remains of the campfire, apple cores, candy wrappers, tins, bottles, someone’s handkerchief, someone’s penknife, old ragged newspapers, coins, wilted flowers from another meadow …” “I get it,” said Noonan. “A roadside picnic.” “Exactly. A picnic by the side of some space road. And you ask me whether they’ll come back …

You said, I stupidly thought it was OK for me to do what everybody around me was doing, which was drinking. I was wrong. Again, you were not wrong for drinking. Everyone around you was not sexually assaulting me. You were wrong for doing what nobody else was doing. Which was pushing your erect dick in your pants against my naked, defenseless body, concealed in a dark area, where party-goers could no longer see or protect me. And my own sister could not find me. Sipping fireball is not your crime. Pealing off and discarding my underwear like a candy wrapper to insert your finger into my body is where you went wrong. Why am I still explaining this?

Kensing walked up the six steps and pushed at the button next to the door of his old house on Anza Street. He still thought of it as his house and it made him sick to see how far Ann had let the place go. The once bright and appealing yellow paint had faded to a jaundiced pallor and was peeling everywhere. The white trim had gone gray. The shutter by the window nearest him hung at a cockeyed angle. The window boxes themselves had somehow misplaced even their dirt, to say nothing of the flowers he'd labored to establish in them. Back when he and Ann were good, they'd always kept the house up, even with all the hours they spent at their jobs. They'd found the time. Now he looked down and saw that the corners of the stoop had collected six months' worth of debris-flattened soda cans, old newspapers and advertising supplements still soaked from the recent storm, candy wrappers, and enough dirt, he thought, to make a start of refilling the window boxes.

All gone. The carny just left town, pulled stakes in the middle of everything and blew town, no one left but this here kid Garraty to face the emptiness of flattened candy wrappers and squashed cigarette butts and discarded junk prizes.

Each pale yellow wrapper has a picture on it. A picture of little Mary Jane, for whom the candy is named. Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort. The eyes are petulant, mischievous. To Pecola they are simply pretty. She eats the candy, and its sweetness is good. To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane.

The women I'm sitting with, all older, all reading magazines that promise quick dinners and happier children, look relieved. They've noticed the pile of wrappers around me, noticed how I sat and ate while they sipped diet sodas or water and gave each other cautious looks if they reached near the candy when grabbing another magazine. They know I do not belong here, that there is something not quite right about me, but they will do nothing about it. They will say nothing, ask no questions. No one does. No one has.

A midlevel Party apparatchik, no vices beyond the usual, on paper a typical example of the species. His official photo showed a bloated face with a bully’s straight gaze and the resentful pout of a much-commanded man. Like most officials of his level, Belov’s rise had been punctuated by a flurry of official complaints from colleagues and citizens, swirling in his wake like candy wrappers in the backwash of a Party sedan. Complaints, the tiny revenge of the powerless. Everyone wrote them.

He cast a soft look at me. “I--” “Oh, don’t.” I sighed. “I don’t do well with sympathy.” “Can I offer you a bracing slap on the back?” Zyt said. “A gruff reassurance, maybe?” “Do you have candy? I would take candy.” He smiled, reached into his pocket, and took out a piece of bright plastic wrap about the size of a fingertip. I squinted at it, but peeled the wrapper with my fingernail and uncovered a small piece of hard fenzu honey, recognizable due to its bright yellow color. “Why,” I said, “are you carrying candy around in your pocket?” Zyt shrugged.

Oh, hi,” I called up, smiling stiffly. “Gee, that’s a good record you’re playing. I’m really enjoying it.” Already I could see the three of us walking home from school together, me lending them my 45s. “‘That’s a good record you’re playing. I’m really enjoying it,’” Rosalie mimicked back. Both girls brayed like donkeys. “What’s your name?” Stacia shouted down. “Dolores.” It came out shaky, like a request. “Oh,” she said. “I thought it was Fucky Face.” Her sister squealed in horrified delight, pulling off a candy wrapper with her teeth and spitting it over the rail at me.

Carter’s ears perked when he heard a crinkle of a wrapper as the guy stuck his hand in one of the many pockets of his pants. Slowly he revealed the mother-of-all candy bars, a king size Kit Kat.

What are you pay for, the candy bar or the wrapper?

What are you paying for, the candy bar or the wrapper?

Ant’s eyes rounded. He knew the candy bar cost five cents. A fortune. “Chocolate!” He peeled back the wrapper slowly, revealing a sharp brown corner, which he bit off in a mouselike nibble. Savoring.

Can I open your unhappy yuppie candy bar for you?” Ronan asked. “Don’t deflect,” Declan chided. But after a moment, he handed over the protein bar. Ronan peeled the wrapper open and took an experimental bite before handing it back. It felt precisely like he’d fallen face-first into wet, dirty sand. “Classy, Ronan.” Declan blew lightly on the bitten end of the bar as if his breath would lift the Ronan-germs from it.

The candy bars in their paper wrappers also had interesting names such as “Nummy Bar

A woman lives a life of contradictions wrapped inside paradoxes wrapped inside a big candy wrapper.

The other thing is the food wrappers. I find candy wrappers stuffed into nearly every crevice in her bedroom and bathroom. I suppose that explains why Nina is fifty pounds heavier than she was in the photographs of when she and Andrew first met.