The Blue Bottle, Part Two

Lying restlessly awake, Rosie looks at the clock, 2:15 am. No matter how she tries to rest, her mind is reliving the events of last evening, the bizarre conversation with Frank. She lay on the bed, covers kicked off, going over every minute of their meeting, asking herself, had they ever met? What was familiar about him? She had felt comfortable talking to him, even felt a pull toward him, his craggy, handsome face, hair wild, and yet perfect. Yet, she had to admit that she felt stung by his smile, appearing brightly on one side of his mouth until it widened to his cheekbones, causing his eyes to crease and sparkle in their depths. He was a stranger, walking into an unfamiliar place, displaying an unusual air of confidence and likability. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, in control, and controlling in its tone. Nothing the stranger said made sense; it was all in the telling, entertaining, and genuine. Rosie felt he spoke like a man who had never told a lie in his life.

Rosie turns over and tries again to sleep. Then, in the darkness, she hears a noise outside the open window, like the rumbling of a motorcycle engine. Swinging her legs off the side of the bed, she raises her nightie from flooding her feet and comes to the window. The sight is the vision of everything that has been occupying her mind. Frank, the stranger, is sitting astride a motorcycle, looking up at the sash window.

Rosie leans out, “Frank?”

“Hurry, Rosie. We don’t have much time,” he calls, beckoning her with a wave in case the motorcycle engine makes him difficult to hear.

“Time…for what?” She says, looking curiously up at a night sky swept clean of cloud. “You said you’d call for me tomorrow.”

“Yes, yes, but I see you awake, Rosie. The time is right, com’on, let’s go. Hurry now,” he yells again above the noise of the revving motorcycle.

“I hardly know you, Frank. I can’t just leave home in the middle of the night with someone I met a few hours ago. Anyway, I cannot get on a motorcycle. They scare me.”

“Yes, you can. Do this, Rosie…hurry. I’ve got you a helmet,” he says, holding the silver helmet aloft.

Rosie knows in her heart Frank is not crazy. She cannot make herself think him anything but decent. “How far? How long will we be gone?”

“Two thousand years. You’ll be back by daylight, I promise. Hurry.”

She hesitates, looks down at him. “Two thousand years!” She answers, wanting to cry with frustration. She had felt sorry for the handsome stranger. But, hell, she thought, walking home last night, he isn’t even Irish. He is, however, strangely engaging.

Frank watches Rosie squirm with indecision. He knows she wants to close the window on his ridiculous idea. Then, in a burst of trust, she says, “I’m coming down. I need a couple of minutes.”

Rosie is petrified at the thought of speed. She’s spent just a few hours in this man’s company, and now, in the middle of the night, she contemplates getting astride his motorbike, encouraged to do so by Frank’s smile of reassurance.

“This is a V-Rod Harley, Rosie, a mechanical marvel. Hold tight around my waist.”

“Where are we going?”

“Timbuktu,” he shouts above the revving of the motorcycle’s engine.

They don’t speak another word. Rosie hangs on for dear life, pushing the side of her face into Frank’s leather jacket. Is she dreaming, releasing herself from the confines of the bed? Frank accelerates the Harley, and in a blink, they are roaring clear out of sight, tearing through the hills and the valleys, and soon her soul is rising through clouds. In what seems a moment, the bike is stationary.

“We’re here, Rosie. Come on, I think we’ll find clues in the library?”

Rosie dismounts the machine. “Clues?…wait, where are we?” She asks, looking at her sand-covered feet.

“Timbuktu. These are the ancient libraries…in that building,” he says, pointing to a majestic structure from another time, “in there we will find the Tombouctou Manuscripts.”

Rosie rolls her eyes as if everything seems abundantly obvious, “Oh yes, sure, the Manuscripts, who didn’t know that?” she responds. “Truthfully, I haven’t a damn clue what you’re talking about, the…whatever you called them, but whatever they are, is that the reason we are here?”

“Coming here will tell us how to get you back with Raven. Come, I feel Lorenzo close,” he says, grabbing her hand. “Come on…”

“Wait…I get back with Raven? You said get you back.” Rosie roots her feet in the sand.

Frank hears and feels Rosie’s sudden hesitation. He tugs on her hand, pulling her forward. Rosie tucks her toes deeper into the sand. “I suppose this is all to do with your fantasy; the one we talked about in the bar. The mystery of time travel?” She says.

“Rosie, listen to me, in this building there are ancient manuscripts. Among them is the Galilee Manuscript. That is why we are here. Now com’on. Lorenzo will know I brought you here, we need to hurry.”

Inside the library, the moon’s light piles down from high windows. Rosie, reticent to go inside, leans in the doorway, deepening her sighs. Frank hovers his hands over a room full of old manuscripts, demons, and dust sent scattering.

“Galilee…” Rosie says I’ve heard of that, back in school. Something to do with the Bible, I think,” and she pauses momentarily, thinking, “no, wait, Frank. Before I met you, I had a strange dream. In the dream, I kept hearing a voice declare, The light and lovely air of Galilee… It was about two alien beings. They descended on Nazareth and were received with a degree of curiosity by men and women who believed in rulers and prophets and less in money changers and sellers of pharmaceuticals. One of the aliens was childbearing. The alien woman had her child while in hiding, the humblest of abodes, away from the noise and confusion, and she sank down in that place where mothers want to go when afraid for their children. It’s all coming back to me, Frank. In the dream the hand of maternal nobility reaches out to the alien woman, a force of faith and compassion and leaves her with the idea that somewhere, somehow, a miracle will happen. It was said an alien spirit then watched over the child. The child’s father, in my dream, Joe, I think, a kind man pouring emerald smiles along her path. It was a wonderful dream, Frank. I cried when I woke up,” she explains.

Franks smiles in a ruefully prophetic way, “it was not a dream, Rosie. You are a traveler.”

Rosie sighed so loud it sounded like a huff. “There you go again. Sometimes I think you need a good Irish hurling stick wrapped around your head, knock some sense into you.”

“Rosie, we don’t have time for this. Help me find the manuscript. Come here. Close your eyes, then hold your hands over the manuscripts, open any one of these manuscripts when you feel something.”

“Close my eyes?” Rosie repeats as she comes forward, looking around.

“Yes, fumble for a manuscript, then open to any page.”

Rosie closes her eyes and fumbles for the edge of a significant volume. It weighs heavy. She opens it…then opens her eyes.

“Holy…holy…holy!” she stammers.

“Well, I’d say we are in the right place.” Frank smiles.

Rosie has opened the manuscript called Galilee, and on the randomly selected page is the title: Theory of Time Travel.

Rosie is less than impressed. “I don’t get this. It’s a trick of yours…or coincidence. It means nothing,” Rosie says.

“Look, Rosie, I think Raven guided us to this place, to this page, just as I believe he guided me to you. You see, it was back then when Raven helped me. He knew my recklessness, and my love of writing. The combination of which led me down dangerous roads toward the thinnest edge of light, secluded inside whirlwinds and darkness. I’d been damned for my betrayal and thrust, unwillingly, into the perpetual fire of Lorenzo’s world. You see, Lorenzo’s real name is Barabbas.”

“Who would call a child, Barabbas?”

Frank didn’t answer. “Let’s get out of here, bring the manuscript. We have to find Raven,” he tells her, “warn him. But when we find Raven, we will find Lorenzo waiting for us. Lorenzo knows the sweetness of evil. Lorenzo holds a deep grudge against Raven. He managed to steal the Blue Bottle from Lorenzo and opened it. From inside the Blue Bottle Raven learned about the coming of the alien. That was until Lorenzo stole back the Blue Bottle before all the secrets were known. So, Lorenzo, too, knew another of the alien’s secrets. It was the secret of rebirth, the overcoming of death.”

“Sounds serious, Frank. Overcome death? I mean, that’s dead, and then alive, right?”

“Lorenzo believes that death is a state of mind, Rosie?”

“So, when did you begin to hate Lorenzo, you know, want to kill him?”

“It was the day of the Cockerel. The same day he stole Raven’s love for the alien. Lorenzo was the cause of Raven’s betrayal.”

“Betrayal? Who did he betray?” Rosie asks. The first of the day’s light shines into the window and fires Rosie’s red hair.

“Before the aliens arrived, Raven was called Peter. He was a fisherman.”

But before Frank could explain anything more, there’s a creaking of a door being pushed ajar. “Rosie,” Frank whispers, “hold my hand, let’s go, he tells her because he has felt Lorenzo’s presence. Enjoying it but fearing. “Lorenzo is here…I don’t see him?”

“There is no one here…but there is someone! I’m confused, Frank. It’s hot in here” she suddenly complains. Frank looks upon Rosie, her harmonic elevations rising and meeting, loves perfume waning. She is fainting. Frank scoops her up into his arms, and retreats. The pages of the encyclopedia bluster and blow, sending unread words into the air.

A deep, deep, sigh sweeps at the cobwebs. The sigh could be the plains of Timbuktu. Night has rolled across the sky as light appears. Frank’s lungs burn. It is a baptism. The clock of life has stopped. Something unseen is pulverizing the air, wanting to caress the taught atmosphere.

A ferocious tongue is licking at Rosie, a God forsaken impulse reaching out and wanting its way. Frank knows Lorenzo is behind them, wanting a creamy perfection to lie with…to become hard with.

The new light pierced the window. A breeze wafted the curtains in the open window. Rosie is lying in her bed, eyes hurting with the brightness. The dream felt so real, so vivid. Rosie lies there and doesn’t know what to feel, what to think. Then, mad at herself, she hurls away the covers and goes to the shower, throws off her nightie and stands under the hot, thrashing water. Time travel, she mutters to herself. I’m so gullible. The hot water rushes through her hair, rinsing down her legs, cleansing grains of sand from between her toes, settling on the shower floor. Rosie reaches down, touching the sand to her fingertips. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.