I viewed the past ten years as a vacation. The earth varied from damp to frozen, solid at times transforming to an over-baked cookie in the mid July heat. The glass surround held fast as it thudded in the small v excavated in the garden. I was buried. Earth trickled first, then roots from a tomato plant eventually covered the belly of the glass. I hadn’t seen daylight since the late spring of 1973 when old Tim Bell planted me right along with his left work glove.

The air, what little there was remaining, contained a pungent mixture of vodka and Tim Bell’s sour breath. The man was nearly blind. One afternoon, I watched from the kitchen table as he poured a bit of the vodka into his coffee mug next to him. He had one of those full page magnifiers making the world news large enough for me to learn of modern day events.

Tim Bell was depressed and cried often, too often. He was a widower, loosing his beloved wife of fifty two years to cancer the previous season. I had arrived at his home a few weeks before falling into the garden. Those handful of days were long enough to realize how lonely an old timer could truly be. The phone never rang in all of that time. The only conversation he shared was with the five by seven photograph of his Tilly. "Till" He’d say blowing her a kiss as he would move through the front door for the afternoon mail. There were times that he would speak in a lullaby voice, in that moment his grieving heart would become apparent.

I wasn’t exactly swimming in vodka. Somehow between the here and there I ended up fused within the glass itself. It was almost as if I were caught with my spirit crystallized inside. I wasn’t always a vodka bottle, at one time I was part of a turn of the century medicine bottle. For years I stood in the square cabinet only viewing the world for brief instances as the door would open and close.

There wasn’t much to tell about the world except time around me was obviously moving. The people who lived on the outside, slowly progressed in years. I was nearly thrown out at one point until Patty Sullivan’ great grandchild noticed the unusualness of the bottle and on a whim placed me in an estate sale. It was then Helena Rolands acquired me for her collection. After much haggling, I was sold for $1.50. I became number five in the back of Helena's treasure crate, directly behind a long necked beer bottle with a wire rimmed cap. She admired unique bottles and fortunate for me, I was noticed.

Before crossing over, I remember fragments of my life. I never had much time for those around me. Never paid attention to the people that needed. I was born into wealth and was raised to believe the world revolved around my latest demand. Once that final breath was released, my tally sheet was very much lacking. Even in the after world I insisted that a mere limbo with common folk was unacceptable.

I suppose I made enough of a stink that they were glad to send me on my way. Imagine my surprise to end up fused to that medicine bottle, it reeked of sulfur and I screamed for days. "This has got to be a mistake!" I pleaded. "No mistake." The whisper of a voice replied.

"I don’t belong here!" I explained.

"You don’t belong anywhere until you begin to help those around you."

"How can I do that? I’m just a bottle." I snapped.

"You are very far from being just a bottle. You have a gift to share to those that can see you. A simple opening of your heart and you can give so much." The voice managed sounding a bit impatient.

"I have nothing to give."

"You’ve always had plenty but no one had ever shown you how. Now you'll have nothing but time for figuring it out."

"What if I fail?"

The voice began to chuckle a bit. "There are never failures, only mistakes. Mistakes can easily be forgiven, just give and the rest will take care of itself."

"I don’t like being here alone....there is no one to talk to."

"Just be patient and remember, one selfless gift is of more value than millions in the bank."

"My father would be turning in his grave to hear you say that!"

"Indeed." The voice said as it trailed away.

For the most part I was confused by the world around me. I stayed fused to that medicine bottle until the fall of 1968.

Helena Rolands took meticulous care of her bottle collection. She dusted everything on Tuesday evening, prior to playing her guitar. Anytime she would lift me, I would pound and shout to her. It was obvious I didn’t exist to those living around me.

A telegram arrived one morning just as Helena had begun sipping her coffee. She sat and stared at the type on paper. Her eyes glazed over and tears began to stream down her cheeks. "How can this be?" She whispered over and over again. By midday, Helena began to pace the length of the house like a caged animal.

"Dear God!" She bawled. "How could you allow my Richard, my baby, to become MIA in Viet Nam? Didn’t I pray for his protection? How could you do this to me?"

She finally collapsed to the floor and she crumpled the telegram in her fist. In that moment, the sun pulled away from the clouds and a single beam of light cascaded through the window illuminating my bottle. Helena gazed up from her perch on the floor. There was something in her expression, a hint of recognition. She hurried to the bottle case and clutched the medicine bottle.

"A face?" She questioned out loud.

She forced off the cork.

The air swirled about me. It was raw wind, unbridled, vicious. My ears began to hum. In a blink I was standing in full human form before Helena Rolands. Her eyes shifted from fright to amazement as she studied me.

My attention fell to my human formed hands, they were stinging with fire, stinging with amazing power. It was then my eyes shifted to that horrible lace dress, my burial gown.

"I don’t understand." Helena managed, my sense of hearing keen, no longer encumbered by the thick glass of the bottle.

"One gift is all I can afford....make it a decent one, think it through before you ask."

Helena’ expression transformed to relief. "A wish? A single wish? Are there any limits of what I ask?"

"I’m not certain. This is my first experience at giving." With an overpowering sense of instinct, I extended my hand.

She nodded, then reached for my flaming hot fingertips. Helena clutched on with an iron grip.

"I’m ready." She said eyeing me with intent.

"I want my son Richard to be found alive and to live a long, happy life thereafter."

"Are you certain this is what you want?" Helena nodded, her eyes filling with emotion.

The world about me began to spin. It was as if I were the center of a hurricane, as wind flew in all directions. There was such force and yet I never released my connection from Helena. Faster and faster I twisted as a sliver of dimension around me opened up and pulled me through. I wanted to scream from the intensity of the experience, but I could not locate my voice. It reminded me of the initial plunge down the hill on a roller coaster and how the air is sucked out of a person. This was the same, but the velocity far more severe.

The hand that was not attached to Helena found the lifeless corpse of a young man on a stretcher. His face was covered with a helmet. I removed the abstract turtle shell, only to discover the expired remains of Richard Rolands. With my free hand, I took hold of his lifeless fingertips. I became a connector in the spirit world, the middle person between past and present.

For a moment I took the warmth from Helena Rolands as images flashed through me and into Richard’s empty encasement. A screaming infant was handed to me, except I realized I was seeing through Helena’s perspective. Though the baby was covered with afterbirth, I felt an incredible love for the child. Next was the simple image of Richard in the backyard playing with his toy car and the delightful way he’d occasionally gaze up at me then grin. A bouquet of dandelions presented as if they were a dozen long stemmed roses. Then, Richard in the fifth grade, reading a poem in front of an auditorium full of people. High school football, him running down the field for a touch down. Standing at graduation, posing for a photograph with his sweetheart Laura Miller. I then felt the mother's heartbreak as she watched him leave after being drafted for Viet Nam.

I felt love, love so strong in power. That heat filled me in whole and I forced it through me and into Richard. It nearly expelled all energy from my spirit. I gladly gave it. Shoved it forth, forced it like a wild vomit from my hand. I felt a twitch in his fingers, then a painful squeeze.

Seconds, moments, minutes passed. Richard was healing, mending from the power of his mother’s love. His eyes fluttered, then he began to cough.

It was then I released my focus and realized there were rows of death in every direction. Other sons, other brothers, other lives that ended so tragically.

On Richard's uniform, splotches of blood disappeared as if it had never been. The green material harbored no proof that moments before bullet holes mangled his fragile heart.

"An angel." He said as he grinned up at me.

"Hardly." I replied releasing his hand.

He chuckled, then winked at me.

Richard swung his legs and sat upright on the gurney. A nurse that was scribbling notes on a chart glanced over in our direction.

"Miss." She said eyeing me with surprise. "The soldiers in here have expired." I nodded at her as her attention fell to Richard. Everything about her expression reflected disbelief.

"I checked you myself." She whispered, shuffling backward. The nurse dropped the chart then ran from the tent.

Richard nodded at me as I dissolved back into his mother’s living room. She was still holding my hand, her face pale and her eyes reflecting deep concern.

"Is it done?" Helena asked.

"Richard will be just fine." I managed.

She nodded, then grinned. "Thank you Jeanne." She pulled me into her embrace and for the first time ever I felt the enormous gift of gratitude.

"Jeanne?" I asked knowing full well my name was Elizabeth.

"I just assumed, the bottle, a wish.......a Genie."

Once said, the glass medicine bottle that I had resided in for over a half century broke into several large pieces. My image then began to sink downward. Helena waved as I disappeared. Slowly, steadily I managed to submerge. As my face was nearing the floor, the telephone rang. "Richard!" She said with excitement. "My God am I happy you’re okay!"

Helena never saw my complete dissent, she was busy in the world of the living and I was cast back into the world of the dead.