Old bottles lined the ancient windowsill. The wavy window glass gave a distorted glimpse into the store's dim interior. I was thirteen and had never visited an antique shop. The idea of purchasing used bottles or other objects from another time was not appealing. They held no memories for me, because they were from an era I had neither lived nor studied. Still, the glass shapes were intriguing. The colors were muted and cloudy. The hazy blue, medicinal green, and murky yellow glass brought to mind stories of alchemists mixing powders and herbs and storing them in strange containers.

Forty years later I toured a ghost town and visited its museum. On display was a collection of odd shaped bottles. Each one was unique in its shape and color. The variations and lack of uniformity in the glass showed they had not been produced on a modern assembly line. Some brought back memories from childhood, but others were still so far in the past that they held no touchstone for me.

I now sit in my library in front of my computer. The screen tries to pull me in with e-mail and blogs. Strangers tell me about weather and current events. People I don’t know ask to be my friend. But they are drowned out by voices in the room. The walls are lined with bookcases that climb almost to the ceiling. Books fill the shelves and crowd up against bookends. As I read the spines, the titles bid me come inside. Authors from the past and the present whisper to me of ancient civilizations, peculiar mathematics, and the vastness of space. Some speak in obscure dialects or tell of mystical places and magical creatures.

On one shelf is a small collection of bottles in assorted shapes and sizes. They are made from tinted glass in clear shades of green, blue, and pink. You can see through them. They appear to be empty, but that’s only because the contents are invisible.

The lyrics to an old Jim Croce song speak of saving time in a bottle. Perhaps these bottles are filled with time. Not time saved for the future, but time imbedded in thoughts from the past. If I remove the stoppers, the thoughts rise up like smoke from a Jennie bottle. They intermingle with ideas that linger around the books. I am wrapped in pleasant memories and exciting adventures from other times and other places.

In this clamor, my own voice is raised. It floats on the waves created by others. Within the confines of the room my voice is loud and eloquent, but it fades as it is carried onto the ocean of writings. Like a message in a bottle that is tossed into the sea, I cast my story. Then I wait to see if someone will pluck it out of the water, remove the stopper, and sample the thoughts within.

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