In April 2010, a man rummaged around in one of the several thrift stores on McHenry Ave. in Modesto. He was looking for a pot that would fit on a hot plate he used in his 6th grade classroom. He wanted to boil water in the pot for several different science demonstrations and lessons.
He came across a perfume bottle. It was one of those bottles you could not see through because it was painted bright pink, like the lotion bottle his wife used. The perfume bottle seemed new. He picked it up and shook it. He turned it over and read the label. It said, “Eau du Eau” (Water of Water), “Fabriqué en République française, 1924.” He thought the bottle might be worth something since according to the label it was 86 years old. The pot he eventually found had a copper bottom and a lid that fit. He took the pot and perfume bottle to the cashier. Strangely, the cashier did not charge him for the bottle. Even though he held it in front of her, she swore he wasn’t holding anything. She said, “Sorry man; I don’t see it. What bottle are you talking about?”
The store operated on behalf of a local charity, one of those places often found in urban areas that hire poor college students and former addicts trying to lead as stable a life as possible. All the workers in the store wore a bright yellow vest and a red, white, and blue name tag.
The names of the people who worked in the store according to their nametags were based on the names of deities found in the world’s religious literature. One woman was named Athena Jackson. Another said, “Hi! I’m Ogun Krishna!” He thought the nametags were all a big joke, because everyone in the store was named after the gods he once read about in a book on different religions. He then thought the name tags represented an effort to protect the identities of the workers. One man’s name tag simply said, “Hello! I’m Zeus.” The cashier was Jesus Osiris.
He got home and read the newspaper. He always read the editorials and letters to the editor. The people at the newspaper and put some really routine letters to the editor on the opinion page. The usual “I hate taxes and I’m against big government” letter was there, as was the letter that raged, “I am mad at city hall because my neighbor is an idiot and we need a traffic signal at the corner of Weebly and Dweebly, because there’s too much traffic around the new shopping center.” These sorts of letters were normal, typical.
However, one letter said, “I am a member of the supra-rational party. You humans are really insane at times. You don’t want to pay taxes, but go berserk when your mail does not arrive at the same time every day, if there is a pothole in the street, or if a streetlight goes out. Your taxes pay for all that stuff. Get over yourselves, humans!” The letter was signed Isis Damballa. Although this letter was different from the norm, he was sure it was written by a person who worked at the secondhand store where he bought the bottle and pot.
Remembering the bottle, he took it out of the shopping bag and looked at it, wondering why it’s appeared to be new and why the cashier apparently did not see the thing. Then he took a nap on his favorite sofa.
He woke up when his wife, sister-in-law, and the kids all arrived, banging on the door, stomping on the floor, laughing and shouting. Total chaos for a few minutes. Then he heard the sounds of eating, the rustle of paper bags and wrapping paper around hamburgers, and the sound of soda slurped through straws. His wife and sister-in-law each had a cup of coffee. They were talking quietly and occasionally chuckling. Girl talk. Women speak. Visiting. He fell back asleep.
An hour after his sister-in-law and her brood left, he woke up again and showed his wife the bottle he found that the secondhand store.
“Check this out. I found this at the thrift shop.”
“What were you doing at the junk store?”
“Remember? I told you I needed a pot for my science lessons. But look; I found this French perfume bottle there, and the clerk swore she couldn’t even see it. I hope you like it”
his wife took the bottle and examined it closely. “Water of Water? What is it, some kind of perfume? Did you open it?”
“No, I wanted to wait until you got back.”
“Put it on a shelf. The kids are watching “Spaghetti Macaroon” right now, and I need some attention.”
What happened while the kids were watching television is none of our business. Let’s just say that the husband and the wife both got the attention they wanted and deserved.
Later that night, after the kids were in bed and all the usual nighttime rituals were complete, he retrieved the bottle from the self he had placed it on and said to his wife, “Don’t you want to see it?”
“See what?”
“The fancy perfume bottle I got from the junk store, that’s what.”
“Oh right; sure, let’s look at it. Why don’t you open it? You know, let’s go open it over the kitchen sink, and open the window over the sink too, just in case.”
The top of the bottle came off easily, and much to their relief, there was no release of toxic fumes or anything like that at all.
“If doesn’t smell like anything.”
“I noticed; maybe it isn’t perfume after all.”
“Hello? Did you want something?”
They both turned around to see a depressed-looking teenaged girl wearing a black trench coat. Absolutely startled out of their wits the wife said, “Who…”
“You called me.”
“What are you talking about? Who are you? How did you get in here? What do you want? Where are your parents?”
“I came from the bottle.”
“You came from the what? What are you some kind of genie?”
“His wife said jinn, honey, I think it’s jinn, isn’t it?
“It’s ok, genie is better, but I can’t grant you any wishes.”
“What?”
“Well, you can ask me to grant a wish for me, or a wish about me, you can wish for me to change my appearance, or to get a job and…”
“Wait a minute. We can’t wish for money or gold or any of that kind of stuff?”
“No; not really.”
“Then what the hell kind of genie are you?”
“For one thing, I’m a person, and for another thing, I don’t care about your stupid wishes. I have lived in that bottle for so long everyone I know is dead I’ve lost, I lost…” then she began to cry.
“Man, do something! His wife scolded.” He ran and got a box of tissue.
“Well, can you get back into the bottle?” he asked the girl.
His wife yelled. “Man, what’s wrong with you? Can’t you see this girl is suffering? Honey, are you hungry? Thirsty?”
The teenaged genie ate a meal of black-eyed peas, candied yams and a bowl of gumbo with rice, all washed down with a couple of glasses of water.
She told them, “I told you I can’t grant the kinds of wishes that make you rich or any of that fairy tale stuff, but can you make a wish for me? Please wish for me to be my authentic self; all you have to do is ask, and I will be released from the bottle and it will be all over. I would be forever grateful.”
They granted the genie’s wish and watched as she transformed from a sad-looking teenaged girl into a young woman who appeared to be in her mid-20s.
“Wait a minute,” the husband said, “I recognize you. You disappeared about 60 years ago, didn’t you? I saw a story online about strange disappearance cases. Your name is, um, Carla Oviedo, right? They looked for you for months and months. They even told your story on the show about cold cases.”
Carla Oviedo, the former genie, told the couple that 65 years ago in 1945, shortly after the end of the second World War, her fiancé returned home to Sacramento from France. He gave her the bottle as a gift, but when she opened the bottle, she vanished, trapped inside the bottle. Her fiancé, Alberto Maravilla could not explain what happened to the police and he eventually spent a couple of years in the Napa State psychiatric hospital, where he came to accept that Carla was gone. He never married and tragically died in an automobile accident on his way to visit relatives who lived on a farm in Modesto. He always carried the perfume bottle with him, and did not know that Carla could hear and see everything happening outside the bottle. His niece took the bottle and put it on the family altar for Dia de los Muertos. In 1984, the family moved and the bottle became the property of one of a woman who found it in the house after she moved in.
She discovered the secret of the bottle and had Carla transform into a teenaged girl and wished for her to get a job working in a fast-food restaurant. The woman was not a nice person and she made Carla live in the bottle. A band of thieves broke into her house and the woman died from a heart attack at age 86. Most of her things got donated to the thrift store where the man found the bottle the cashier Jesus Osiris claimed he could not see.