The hills of Istanbul steepen forever upwards. Cars parked wholly on the sidewalks surrounded by cats and dogs, and carts selling freshly-squeezed juice of pomegranate or orange. The roads are the only place a pedestrian can walk, dodging side to side as delivery drivers on mopeds swerve their way to and from their stops without a second's thought about road-safety laws. Cars turn and stop on a whim or barely brush past a person at speed; man and machine dancing a revving waltz of near death. But all I cared about in those moments was returning to my accommodation with my Eti Gold chocolate bar, with me preferably alive.

A warm light seeped through the packaging as it was unwrapped. Beholden to the beauteous shine of grandeur and wonderment, I was swiftly and violently presented with a greasy slab of child's putty hastily molded to look like a chocolate bar, reflecting the ceiling lights into my eyes - shiny and oily like the skin of a sweaty athlete crossing the finish line of a race.

The texture upon the first bite was like falling teeth first into gritty 3-day-old sidewalk-swept snow, and each chew afterward was walking through powdery sludge, slowly seizing up my jaw. My internal early-warning systems had me map out the path to the nearest bin to scrape out the contents of my mouth but I felt obliged to continue, due to having spent my money on it.

I had to concentrate on swallowing. An automatic process is done without any thought and I had to focus beyond anything I've ever had to do just to eat this grainy pulp. The aftertaste that presented itself with a huge fanfare was that of bitterness in its most primal form, and burnt milk at its most stupid; all of this while the sludge was ever-so-slowly making its way into my stomach where it then proceeded to make my breath feel digital like was exhaling an incredibly fine mist of acid and sharp pixels.

After around 20 minutes from that simultaneously initial and final bite, my chest felt as if an arson attack was mid-swing inside me; my lungs burning and my stomach already turned into a toxic pool. The air fouled into poison as it glided over my now-diseased tongue before defiling my lungs with its acrid and burning sting. The flesh within me slowly bubbled and popped like a thin sheet of tissue atop boiling tar.