MrPenny
05-31-2010, 06:45 PM
The spoiler has the first draft. Please go to this post (http://amkon.net/showpost.php?p=434631&postcount=14)for the revision.
It looked like a wine bottle. However, no clue to the vintner existed; the labels having long since rotted away. A moldy cork still stoppered the neck; broken off slightly below the lip of the opening. She wiped the grime from its sloping shoulders and pondered the color. Smokey dark, with a depth that suggested the color was not a feature of the glass, but a result of its contents. She gave it a tentative shake. No rattle of debris or slosh of fluid resulted; despite its odd weight and heft it seemed empty.
She unzippered her knapsack and carefully wedged it between the dry socks and t-shirt, pleased that this day’s hike in the field had a souvenir, and imagining where the bottle would be displayed. “Got it…I’ll clean it up nice and put it on the back of my desk.” And that evening, she did so.
Her morning path from bed to coffee pot never varied. Except for this day. This day, while shuffling to the kitchen, she kicked something small across the hardwood floor. She looked just in time to see the object ricochet under the television stand. On her knees, she groped amongst the dust and cables until she felt a small, round object. A cork. Moldy and slightly ragged on one end, as if broken off.
Her morning coffee ritual now forgotten, she turned to the desk. The bottle stood precisely where she placed it the previous evening; clean and shiny now. Sure enough, the cork no longer plugged the neck of the bottle. She fruitlessly attempted to peer into the bottle, turning it this way and that, hoping for some gleam of light to illuminate its interior. The inside of the bottle remained opaque and unseen. Tentatively, she upended the bottle over the waste can. No dust, no flakes, nothing exited the bottle. “Weird...air pressure maybe? The warm water on the bottle must have caused the cork to come loose.” She crammed the cork back into the bottle’s neck, finished the morning rituals, and went to work, dismissing the event as just “one of those things”.
In the evenings she liked to spend some time at her desk, checking email and browsing the Internet. Recalling the morning’s event, she idly picked up the bottle. The cork was gone. “Damn…I must have jammed it in too far and it’s fallen in.” She shook the bottle, yet nothing rattled. She upended the bottle again, but this time over her head to look up into it, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cork. Nothing was visible. She searched the desk and floor, even to the extent of peering under and behind furniture. The cork was not found. “Well, it couldn’t have just disappeared…”
She selected a new, unsharpened pencil and again turned the bottle upside down, probing the interior of the bottle with the pencil in hopes of bumping the cork. ”Ah ha…” she thought, “there is something in here.” Some resistance, as if cloth or material had been jammed into the bottle. She turned the bottle right side up and released the pencil. It remained in place; with just the metal band and eraser visible. She removed the pencil and inspected it. No remnants of the bottle’s contents marked the pencil’s yellow paint.
She sharpened the pencil. “Maybe I can stick something with the point and drag it out.” She poked the pencil into the bottle, barely grasping it by the eraser, and distinctly feeling a “give” as she worked it around. Her fingers slipped and she dropped the pencil into the bottle. This time, no part of it remained peeking out of the bottle. Looking into the opening, she couldn’t see its end. She turned the bottle over and shook it, but the pencil did not appear. “Good job fool…one of your good pencils too.” Accepting that the pencil was lost, she replaced the bottle on the desk, yawned, and went to bed.
Morning. The clock passed the hours as she sat as far from the desk as possible, trembling, reading and re-reading the words on the wall. About midday, ignoring the hunger, and swallowing the fear, she packed the bottle back into her knapsack and set out for the field.
She found the very spot where the bottle originally lay. She began trembling again; terrified, yet knowing exactly what was to be done. She began digging in the loose soil with her bare hands. Only inches into the soil and she finds the first rotting scraps of cloth. She uncovers the skull and sobs.
Months later the words on the wall have successfully resisted paint, detergent, bleach…everything. The childish scrawl, accompanied by a crudely drawn valentine heart;
pleez help me. take the bottle bak
It looked like a wine bottle. However, no clue to the vintner existed; the labels having long since rotted away. A moldy cork still stoppered the neck; broken off slightly below the lip of the opening. She wiped the grime from its sloping shoulders and pondered the color. Smokey dark, with a depth that suggested the color was not a feature of the glass, but a result of its contents. She gave it a tentative shake. No rattle of debris or slosh of fluid resulted; despite its odd weight and heft it seemed empty.
She unzippered her knapsack and carefully wedged it between the dry socks and t-shirt, pleased that this day’s hike in the field had a souvenir, and imagining where the bottle would be displayed. “Got it…I’ll clean it up nice and put it on the back of my desk.” And that evening, she did so.
Her morning path from bed to coffee pot never varied. Except for this day. This day, while shuffling to the kitchen, she kicked something small across the hardwood floor. She looked just in time to see the object ricochet under the television stand. On her knees, she groped amongst the dust and cables until she felt a small, round object. A cork. Moldy and slightly ragged on one end, as if broken off.
Her morning coffee ritual now forgotten, she turned to the desk. The bottle stood precisely where she placed it the previous evening; clean and shiny now. Sure enough, the cork no longer plugged the neck of the bottle. She fruitlessly attempted to peer into the bottle, turning it this way and that, hoping for some gleam of light to illuminate its interior. The inside of the bottle remained opaque and unseen. Tentatively, she upended the bottle over the waste can. No dust, no flakes, nothing exited the bottle. “Weird...air pressure maybe? The warm water on the bottle must have caused the cork to come loose.” She crammed the cork back into the bottle’s neck, finished the morning rituals, and went to work, dismissing the event as just “one of those things”.
In the evenings she liked to spend some time at her desk, checking email and browsing the Internet. Recalling the morning’s event, she idly picked up the bottle. The cork was gone. “Damn…I must have jammed it in too far and it’s fallen in.” She shook the bottle, yet nothing rattled. She upended the bottle again, but this time over her head to look up into it, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cork. Nothing was visible. She searched the desk and floor, even to the extent of peering under and behind furniture. The cork was not found. “Well, it couldn’t have just disappeared…”
She selected a new, unsharpened pencil and again turned the bottle upside down, probing the interior of the bottle with the pencil in hopes of bumping the cork. ”Ah ha…” she thought, “there is something in here.” Some resistance, as if cloth or material had been jammed into the bottle. She turned the bottle right side up and released the pencil. It remained in place; with just the metal band and eraser visible. She removed the pencil and inspected it. No remnants of the bottle’s contents marked the pencil’s yellow paint.
She sharpened the pencil. “Maybe I can stick something with the point and drag it out.” She poked the pencil into the bottle, barely grasping it by the eraser, and distinctly feeling a “give” as she worked it around. Her fingers slipped and she dropped the pencil into the bottle. This time, no part of it remained peeking out of the bottle. Looking into the opening, she couldn’t see its end. She turned the bottle over and shook it, but the pencil did not appear. “Good job fool…one of your good pencils too.” Accepting that the pencil was lost, she replaced the bottle on the desk, yawned, and went to bed.
Morning. The clock passed the hours as she sat as far from the desk as possible, trembling, reading and re-reading the words on the wall. About midday, ignoring the hunger, and swallowing the fear, she packed the bottle back into her knapsack and set out for the field.
She found the very spot where the bottle originally lay. She began trembling again; terrified, yet knowing exactly what was to be done. She began digging in the loose soil with her bare hands. Only inches into the soil and she finds the first rotting scraps of cloth. She uncovers the skull and sobs.
Months later the words on the wall have successfully resisted paint, detergent, bleach…everything. The childish scrawl, accompanied by a crudely drawn valentine heart;
pleez help me. take the bottle bak