The Clinking Bottles

Authors note: I based this on an old bottle

that I saw on one of the object websites, and

a tower that I used to pass by a lot between

Missouri and Arkansas.

She stares outside the window, in attempt to ignore her immediate surroundings. Her mind wanders back to the days when everything was simpler, the time of colored crayons and an abundant best friends, but the jolt of the car brings her back to reality. The road is old, bumpy, and harsh. Jerking the car around at every pothole and rock in the road. Her foot space is limited, but she is used to that. Today she is crammed in the backseat with her older brother and her annoying, younger sister. Her parents sit comfortably in the front seats, discussing money and all the other things that adults talk about. They had just bought another house, so they had been making trips back and forth between both of their homes: The old that will soon be forgotten and the new with great potential. The girl feels claustrophobic and moves her feet. She hears the glass bottles clinking around on the floorboard, and he asks her to hand him another. She peels her eyes away from the car window briefly, turning to look at him, she hesitates before handing him another. She is scared, and he notices it as he downs his second beer this trip. He was driving the family back across the state to visit their old hometown, one of many they’ve previously lived in. You see, she had made that same exact trip many times before, and every time she saw that one intriguing and tall tower next to that small, old rustic store on the left. The tower was four stories high and rested on a cliff on the side of the mountain. Every single time her family passed they ignored it. She never did though, it never went unnoticed when it passed by her backseat window. She once asked for them to stop, and their reply reminded her of how inconvenient it would be for them. “It would be pointless to stop,” they would say, “it would just be a waste of time.” All she wanted was to climb to the top and let the scenery surround her. She wanted to look over the monstrous cliff, and see the vastness beyond.  It would be comfort to her eyes, she just knew it. If only her parents would understand that.

On this trip she sees it once again, but this time instead of passing it the car pulls in and stops right in front of it. The girl sees the tower more clearly now, and it amazes her. She wonders just a second at what the motive behind this stop actually is. He tells everyone to get out of the car, and that they are going inside. She was confused at first, all she wanted to do was to climb up the steps of the tower only ten feet away from her. In time, she tells herself. Her and her family go inside the store, and are greeted by a smiling, sweet old man offering honey sticks and root beer flavored candy. She doesn’t want to wait, she wants to go outside and climb the tower, her vision is so close to coming true. Somehow it would make it all better for her, to achieve that much is all she wants right now. Her parents bought something to drink, said goodbye to the sweet old man, and walked outside. The girl asked if she could climb the tower while they were stopped, told them that it would only take a couple minutes. They are in so good of a mood that they oblige. As soon as she hears the words she runs towards the tower, her siblings following far behind. She gets to the tower and looks up wondrously before climbing each flight of stairs quickly and carefully. It takes what seemed like forever for her to reach the top, but she does. It is all she hopes it would be, and it makes her forget everything that had happened up to that exact moment. She hears her siblings running up the stairs not too long after, and her one moment is gone. To her though, it was worth the ten seconds that allowed her to forget about all the clinking bottles and the rough potholes in the road.