A/N: A possible one shot, A possible WIP... I just don't know. I'd appriciate your review. I might be changing time a little here, but let's say (for all purposes of this fiction) Wonka closed the factory when Charlie (Yes, Charlie Bucket) was only two. As for which movie... I couldn't decided. I like Depp's personality, and I think that's where I'll base it from... but I also like all the scenary and the look of the factory in the 1971 version. Let your imagination wander, I guess... xD Kind of angsty, but very Wonka in my opinion... a story about the basic loss of hope... Enjoy! Ashley

"Good morning!" Willy said, his cane clacking along the ground as he traveled through the chocolate room towards his office at the end of the stone path. Around him several workers smiled and stood up to wave. He waved the off and hummed to himself as he surveyed his creation. "Joe!" He said suddenly, turning to look at the man across the chocolate river. "Come here a moment please!" He motioned to the man of about seventy and watched him cross the large grassy bridge.

"Yes, Mr. Wonka sir…" Joe spoke kindly.

"Joe… Walk with me a moment." They began to walk, nearing Wonka's office with every step. "I'd like to speak to you in…" Here Mr. Wonka opened the door and drew a breath in horror. Willy blinked momentarily and then began to shake. "Not again…" He began to frantically search his office, his hands fluttering about his desk. The papers were toppled into a large pile of the floor. His furniture had been overturned and his file cabinets beaten into opening. "No…" He mumbled in disbelief several times… "No…" Joe watched in horror as Willy finally came upon what he was looking for. His knuckles were bright white as he grasped a piece of paper to his chest, heaving a sigh of relief… but there was still a flame in his eyes.

"Mr. Wonka, sir…" Joe said, trying to make sense of it all. But the candy man's face was now strikingly pale as he turned on the old man, and his whole factory. In fact it could be said, though he would not realize, that was the moment he turned on the world.

"Everyone out!" He bellowed suddenly, in a voice that was overwhelming and incredibly heart broken. "SHUT THE DOORS!" He said thickly. "Get out!"

Fifteen minutes later, everything lay dormant, as he had instructed. The sugar bags were spilling along the green grass, and a cold rain had begun to hit the windows. Wonka frowned. Milk and cream lay discarded in the hallways. The workers had left in such a rush that most had forgotten their coats and hats, all of which Wonka had promptly dropped down the furnaces.

He wanted nothing more to do with the spies. He wanted nothing more to do with the people… he was through with it all.

"Mr. Wonka, sir…" A last voice soared at him through the chocolate room.

"I said out!" He replied hotly.

"But sir… my family will starve, no doubt." It was the old man, Joe… "For I'm already quite poor, and this job is all that keeps my family going."

"Out!"

"Sir!" Joe pleaded. "We have a grandson. His name is Charlie… please… he's young, not more than two."

"Do you think I care?" Wonka bellowed, turning on the old man with his cane raised. "Why should I care about your family, I don't care about anything anymore… now GET OUT!"

With Wonka's final words, Joe Bucket stepped out of the factory and into the cold rain that was falling across the town. As he walked hobbled home, he wondered how to tell his son and his daughter in law, the other three grandparents, and of course young Charlie, that he had lost his job. Immediately he longed for the warmth and security that the Wonka factory had provided…

Yet inside that factory, standing at the edge of the waterfall of chocolate, was a man who had given up hope, given up life…

His white hand reached against the rock wall and fiddled with the different juts of shale. The waterfall slowed, and then stopped. The room fell extremely silent as the chocolate stopped churning and stilled into a large, muddy pile. William Wonka sighed and walked away… away from hope, away from life…

Something had been stolen from him and no amount of chocolate in the world could bring it back.