The Bottle

Lester Holt was deep in thought as he walked along the beach. The tide was low and he enjoyed the feel of wet sand between his toes. He had the beach to himself and the solitude prompted introspection. Lester wondered about the future and what it would be like when he was older. He was fifteen going on sixteen and filled with self-doubt. He never recalled such a challenging time growing up. Gone were the carefree days of his childhood. No more wayward jaunts in the nearby bush or endless adventures possible on the beach and in the sea.

Lester’s childhood and upbringing were grounded in a stable family environment—two parents who were strict with him and a younger sister. In the rural Caribbean community where his family lived they were regarded as nice people. No drama or fuss going on in his household to alert the whole village to what should be kept private, as was the case with some of his neighbours. Next year he was going to take the school-leaving exams and he worried about how they would go. His parents expected him to do well enough so that he could attend the big school in the capital city to further his studies before going to university. The idea of having some physical distance between himself and his family appealed to him but he feared that he would be ill-equipped to live without them despite any arrangements made to make his room and board in the city as comfortable as possible. He also worried about failing his exams and if that occurred would his parents be understanding.

He noticed a green bottle with a white cap snared in a clump of sea weed stranded on the shore. Something about the colour and the shape of the bottle drew his attention. Picking up the otherwise empty bottle, he could see a rolled up piece of paper within. Retrieving the paper from the bottle, he spread the sheet and read what had been handwritten on it. The text was as follows:

Whoever should recover this note please follow the instructions below precisely. If you do so then the thing you desire most will be yours.

First, you must make a decision to participate or not. If you feel that this assignment is not for you, please return this note to the bottle, close it and throw it into the sea.

Lester stopped reading and looked around to see whether there was anyone he knew with whom he could share this mysterious find, but there was no one else on the beach.

Resuming, he read:

Your task is to write down three statements in the same order as they are written below. However, you must wait for exactly 24 hours in between writing them. When you have finished writing the third statement wait 24 hours before returning this note to the bottle, closing it and throwing it into the sea. Writing down each of these statements means that they will come alive during the following 24 hours.

Lester shuddered and his pulse quickened as the implication of the instructions sank in. He read the three statements almost as if they were one, scanning words without understanding their collective meaning. He carefully rolled the sheet of paper up and returned it to the bottle. He thought about leaving the bottle where he had found it but then remembered that the note asked that the finder return the bottle to the sea if they did not want to participate. Putting the bottle in a small sack, Lester decided it might be best to give the matter more time for consideration.

***

The next day, following their regular after school football kick around, Lester and his two best friends, Liam and Kirk, walked home slowly. He did not sleep well the previous night and could hardly concentrate during the day as his mind continued to dwell on the strange note, which he had re-read before school. The first statement to write down was: You are what you think.

Lester decided that he would seek the advice of his mates, however, he was determined not to let them know why he sought their counsel.

“Do you believe that you can change your life just by thinking about it?” Lester blurted out of the blue.

“What wrong with you boy?” Liam asked.

“He gone philosophical on we,” Kirk laughed.

“You two don’t have no brains to answer the question,” Lester retorted.

“Alright, Mr. Brains, let me give you my thoughts,” Liam responded. “I feel that we have to think about we life in order to do something with it. Otherwise tell me why I bothering to go to school?”

“You going to school because otherwise your mother is going to cut your ass!” Kirk jeered.

“You all don’t get it. I not talking about things like going to school to get a job. I asking whether you believe that if you think something enough about yourself then it go come true.”

“That sound like prayers if you ask me,” said Kirk.

“I hear people does call that manifesting and you could write down thoughts and put them in a journal and keep re-reading them. Some people claim it does work, give it time, but I not sure about that,” added Liam.

“Now that sound like wishful thinking to me,” Kirk chimed in.

At home, Lester reflected on the conversation with his friends and took note of the time. It was almost 7 pm. Earlier he promised himself that he would make up his mind about participating by that hour. He convinced himself that the note was probably wishful thinking along the lines of Kirk’s earlier speculation or some New Age kind of prayer. He worried, though, that if what the note claimed was true then he would find out within 24 hours; that thought provoked a shiver in his body.

Precisely at 7 pm, Lester wrote: You are what you think. He penned those words on a lined sheet of paper torn from one of his school notebooks. As he wrote he tried to focus on one thought: I wish to be the leader of my class.

Lester was an average student and passable football player. He felt that his teachers mostly ignored him and would not notice if he stopped showing up. He wanted to be among the select group in his class who teachers and students alike wanted to know well. Whether it was for their brains, athleticism or good looks, these special students were admired and he wished that he could be one of them. More than that, he wanted to be the best of them.

The next day, at school, was memorable. The mathematics teacher, Mr. Orwell, decided that the level of competency within the group was so low he needed to try something different to raise the standard. Everyone was given a simple equation to solve within one minute. After the minute was up each student was to drop the answer along with their name into a box on Orwell’s desk. Lester was confident that he had provided the correct solution so he was surprised when his was the first name called by the teacher. Mr. Orwell then ordered Lester and six others to stand facing the wall for the remainder of the class period. While suffering this ignominy, Lester considered the next statement that he was scheduled to write down at 7 pm but debated with himself whether he should continue to participate.

***

“Ah boy Lester, you really lead the class today. Congratulations on being named the first maths dummy,” Kirk chortled as the boys began their trek home after football.

Lester said nothing but Kirk’s cruel jibe reminded him of what he had wished for the previous evening. Shrugging the coincidence off, he decided to surreptitiously solicit the advice of his two friends again before making up his mind whether to write down the next statement that evening.

“I have a question to ask the two of you,” Lester began.

“You coming with more philosophy for we?” Kirk asked.

“Is just a question, you don’t have to torture your small brain if you can’t answer.”

“Listen to he, Mr. Mathematician, talking about brain. At least we didn’t have to stand and face the wall,” Kirk reminded him.

“What it is you want to ask Lester?” Liam said.

“Even though we still living with we parents, we not children anymore. Why is them telling we what to do, what to study, what to eat, where to go, what to wear, when to come home, etc?”

“I hear what you saying. Is like they feel we can’t think for we self and only them know what right for we,” Liam complained.

“Exactly!” Lester replied.

“I don’t know what wrong with the two of you. Because you have some hairs growing and you start to become man you feel you have rights. Nah man, you is just a slave on your family plantation. You do what they say or is still licks for you,” Kirk responded firmly.

“I have to agree with Kirk,” Liam said. “We really don’t have much freedom now. The most we can hope for is when we leave home we go be able to make important decisions on we own.”

“I hear you but I wish for once is me right now who really in charge of my life,” Lester said quietly.

At exactly 7 pm Lester wrote the next statement: You control your destiny.

At the same time he was furiously trying to keep a thought in mind: I wish to stay out late tonight without my parents saying anything afterward.

Lester stood up from his writing desk and pondered his next move. If he wanted to test the new manifestation he would have to do something dramatic so that there could be no doubt that it had worked. He decided that he would leave the house before his family sat down to dinner at 7:30 pm without informing anyone. He would return when his family should have gone to bed already. He was counting on there being no reaction or very little from his parents to such unusual behaviour. He understood that it was a risky plan but was desperate to see whether he could achieve such a milestone in the relationship with his parents. Lester slipped out of the house quietly and went to the beach where, under a bright moon, he appreciated the motion-filled serenity of the sea.

When he returned to the house there was a light on in the living room and surprisingly the car was not out front. Stepping lightly, so as not to wake anyone, he opened the door to his parent’s room and then his sister’s. No one was at home. Immediately he panicked as he feared that his family might be out searching for him, worried by his sudden disappearance. He went to his room to check his phone, which he had left behind. There was a missed call and a text message from his mother sent a few minutes after he left the house earlier: “Tante Helen in the hospital in town. We going to see she now and go be back late. Fix a plate of food from what in the fridge.”

***

“What is it you understand by the word sustain?” Lester asked his two friends a few minutes into their post-football walk home the next day.

“Again? What is it with these intellectual questions, bro?” Kirk asked.

“I just ran across the word in something I read today and wondered what it might mean to we.”

“I not sure where you heading with this line of talk but I think is how you can keep yourself alive, like having enough food and water,” Liam answered.

“Yeah, but right now is we parents supplying that. What is it that we don’t have to depend on them for?”

“The only thing we have on we own is what in we head. That is why we going to school so we could get out from under parents and take care of we self in the future,” Liam said.

“There must be something beside education to help keep we going,” Lester added.

“It look like you need to pay more attention in church so you know how to behave yourself or to get some forgiveness when you done sin,” Kirk said.

“Maybe there are other ways to nourish a man’s soul,” Lester suggested.

“Is woman you studying! Now I get where this talk coming from,” Kirk harped.

“Let we forget about it,” Lester answered and the boys continued the rest of the walk home in silence.

At 7 pm Lester wrote the third and final statement on the lined sheet of paper at his desk: You sustain yourself.

He was concerned about the consequences of writing down this last statement after his experience with writing the others following which his wishes did not turn out as he imagined they would. Nonetheless, he considered his latest thought to be too compelling not to give it a shot. I wish Sheila Johnson gives me a kiss tomorrow, was Lester’s abiding thought as he wrote down the third statement.

At school the next day he did not know what to expect but was excited by the prospect of a kiss from the most popular and in his eyes the most beautiful girl in the school. How it happened he did not care, as long as he could claim some lip lock from Sheila who, up until this point, appeared not to have noticed him at all despite being in several of the same classes with him.

During the mathematics period, Mr. Orwell split his class into two groups and promised a prize to the team who could answer the most questions correctly. Lester was in the group to which Mr. Orwell had appointed Sheila Johnson as captain. She was not only good looking but smart as well. Lester was pleased to be on her team as it easily beat the other, which included Liam and Kirk. It so happened that Lester was next to Sheila who was beaming and surrounded by her exultant victorious teammates. He trembled with excitement at his close proximity to the brainy beauty and braced himself for what he imagined could tun into a kiss of appreciation for his excellent contributions to the team’s success. In the midst of Lester’s fantasising, Mr. Orwell handed Sheila a small bag about which he said she should distribute its contents. Turning first to Lester, Sheila reached into the bag and handed him a Hershey Kiss chocolate before turning her attention to the other members of the winning team.

***

Lester didn’t stick around for football after school and went straight home. In his room he laid on his bed and reflected on the bizarre turn of events associated with following the instructions from the note from the bottle. Given that nothing seemed to go as he imagined it would, he worried that the promise of whatever he desired the most would come true, as the note claimed, and be disastrous. He tried hard not to think about it, not to think at all lest something unpredictable come to pass. He wished that he had never discovered the bottle.

After a largely sleepless night, Lester approached the school day with trepidation. Liam and Kirk asked him what was the matter as he skipped football the previous day and seemed preoccupied and morose. After football, the boys walked home mostly in silence.

Lester rolled up the note and replaced it in the bottle. At exactly 7 pm he threw it as far as he could into the sea and hoped that the falling tide would take it a long way from his island.

As he sat down to dinner with his family that evening, Lester felt relieved that nothing unusual had occurred during the past 24 hours. He said a silent prayer of thanks for having a loving, supportive family and acknowledged that was the most that he should desire at his young age.