It's true what they say about spirits in bottles--they grant wishes, but only at a price. They lure you in with their depths and flavors and shiny outside so that you don't see the poison lying within. Not everyone finds these bottles, yet they are more common than legends say. How do I know, you ask? Well, my father found one.
One fateful day, my father picked up a beautiful spirit-filled bottle. He did not notice the noxious fumes under the beautiful bouquet. It whispered promises of confidence, pride, and success and so he drank, and drank, and drank. He did not stop at one bottle though. The spirit in the bottle urged him to seek out more, promising more granted wishes. Yet each time it was the spirit's turn to hold up its end of the bargain, it deftly convinced my father that payment was not due yet. When that failed it gave the ghost of a granted wish, rusted dreams covered in gossamer. Confidence and pride flowed as long as the bottle did. Success seemed a sure thing as long as the spirit was there. When my father could no longer be convinced, however, it was too late. The spirit had possessed my father's body.
At times I would look into his eyes and not see him there. What an unsettling thing to be in the presence of a loved one and yet also in the presence of a complete stranger. It is the things nightmares are made of.
My brother and I tried to perform exorcisms of the spirit. We begged and pleaded with it to return the father we knew to us. At times, we succeeded. Our father's soul would return to his eyes, his heart, his embraces. We relished in these times and tried to put the past behind us. But the spirit never truly gave up. Eventually, it would be found in another bottle and it would surge through our father again, destroying the precious memories we had made in the meantime. These surges would also come with disease, but then there would be periods of health again when we got the spirit at bay once more. We did not think long on how these bouts of illness were compiling and compiling and compiling.
One day he finally fell too ill to ignore. I visited him, layered in protective gear and keeping my distance. I looked into his eyes bulging out of his skin-draped skull and struggled to see him in there. Yet he was there; I knew he was. He had to be.
I watched him writhe and thrash in pain as the healers administered saving liquids to him. My presence didn't seem to help any, but everyone assured me that, at the very least, it did no harm. Yet it did harm to me. Fond memories of my father were being slowly replaced by him being in pain, him being vacant, him struggling for air.
Things have calmed with his possession now. All bottles are kept away from him as a precaution and this has helped everything even out. Yet the spirit lurks within him and has taken so much, but it hasn't taken all and will never take all. My father is still my father. Yet, despite this knowledge, I also know what he--and I--have lost all thanks to a spirit in a bottle.
So I eye bottles carefully, for what if one contains the spirit that will possess me and take me away from my family. Yet somehow I do not avoid them entirely. Perhaps this is hubris. Perhaps I think the spirit was a singular entity despite what the legends say. Perhaps I am simply tempted to tempt fate. And so I take careful sips and hope that no spirit hides in them.
I pray you do the same.
(Prompt by me)
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