The Days of Chalk and Candy

The Days of Chalk and Candy

Some memories don’t fade with time; they stay etched in the heart like chalk on a blackboard—fragile, perhaps, but vivid enough to bring back the taste of innocence. The “Days of Chalk and Candy” were mine.

It was a time when the mornings smelled like freshly sharpened pencils and afternoons tasted of tangy orange candy bought for a single coin. I was eight years old, living in a small neighborhood where the biggest building was our school and the biggest news was who had won the weekly marble tournament. Life was simple, but it never felt small.

The school building stood proudly at the center of our little world. Its cracked white walls held decades of stories, and the blackboards inside seemed to whisper secrets from classes long gone. Chalk dust floated in the sunlight streaming through the high windows, and I thought it looked like magic. My teacher, Mrs. Karim, had a way of making every lesson feel like a story, whether it was about multiplication tables or the adventures of a king in a faraway land.

But it wasn’t the lessons alone that made those days golden. It was the in-between moments.

After school, my friends and I would race to the corner shop owned by old Mr. Anwar. His tiny store smelled of spices, soap, and something sugary—like joy itself. We’d crowd around the counter, our small hands clutching coins still warm from our palms, and point to the jars filled with brightly wrapped candies. My favorite was a round, striped sweet that left my tongue red for hours. Others preferred the chewy toffees that stuck stubbornly to their teeth. Mr. Anwar would always slip in an extra piece “for the road,” as he called it, though we never made it past the first turn without finishing them.

The chalk part of my childhood wasn’t just from school. It was also from the games we played on the dusty street outside our homes. We’d draw elaborate hopscotch boards or pretend cities on the ground, the lines bright white against the brown earth. Our cities had roads, markets, and even imaginary rivers we couldn’t cross without “paying the toll” in marbles or candy. The chalk would smudge under our feet, fading by evening, but the laughter would linger in the air long after.

Summer afternoons stretched endlessly. The sun would hang lazily in the sky, and we’d gather under the shade of the old neem tree. Someone would bring a packet of salted peanuts, and someone else would tell a made-up ghost story. We’d shiver, not from fear, but from the thrill of being together in a world that felt ours alone.

I remember the little fights, too—the arguments over who got to be “it” in tag, or whose turn it was to write on the board in class. Back then, they felt huge, but they never lasted. One shared candy was all it took to mend friendships.

The thing about childhood is that you don’t realize you’re in it until it’s gone. The last day of chalk and candy came without warning. I was twelve when my family moved to another city. My new school had whiteboards instead of blackboards, and the corner shop sold chips and soda instead of sweets in glass jars. I still had friends, still learned, still laughed—but it wasn’t the same. The magic of those dusty games and that tiny store had been left behind with the chalk lines on our old street.

Years later, I returned to visit. The school still stood, but the paint was fresh, and the windows had bars now. The neem tree had been cut down to make space for a new road. Mr. Anwar’s shop had been replaced by a bright, modern store selling electronics. I stood there for a long time, holding a packet of candy I’d bought somewhere else. It didn’t taste quite the same, but it brought back everything—the smell of chalk, the squeak of the board, the crunch of gravel under running feet, the sweet tang of childhood joy.

We spend our adult lives chasing big dreams, but sometimes, it’s the small things that hold our hearts together. A piece of chalk. A piece of candy. A group of friends who knew nothing of the world beyond their street but thought they owned it anyway.

The days of chalk and candy taught me something I didn’t understand until I was grown: happiness is rarely about having more—it’s about savoring what you already have. And sometimes, what you have is just enough to fill a lifetime.

Even now, when life feels too loud, I close my eyes and picture myself back there: chalk dust in the air, candy in my pocket, friends laughing all around me. And for a moment, I’m eight years old again, standing in the golden light of the days I’ll never forget.