The Canning Jar Returns

A few days ago, I put the canning jar out for a sunbath. I forgot it on the wall, and when I returned, several hours later, it was gone. There was a woman munching candies loitering on the walk.

“Want a candy?” she said?
“No, thanks,” I said, “but my canning jar is missing!”
“Well, it looked like you wanted to get rid of it, sitting there on the wall,” the lady replied.
“No, I was just charging it. It glows at night if it sits in the sun.”
“Well, now all that’s left is the candy wrappers I put down in the place where it was. To let you know that it’s gone,” the woman said.
She was a bit odd, but I’ve learned that living in an apartment is different than owning your home and one has to get along with many kinds of people. I wondered if she’d taken the jar.
“Have you seen it?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, it was right where the candy wrapper are now. But I didn’t take it.”
I wondered about that. The whole thing with the candy wrappers was so odd.
I made a sign, “Have you seen my jar of sunlight? Please bring it back to Apt 108″ with a picture of the jar, and posted it on the spot I’d left the jar. Half an hour later the apartment house’s super rapped at my door, with the sign in her hand.
“We don’t allow these” she said, handing me the sign.
“Where can I post it?” I asked.
“You shouldn’t have left the jar out at all,” she said.
“I know that, and I’m sorry I forgot it, but now that it’s gone, I’d like to try to get it back.”
“Not with a sign,” she said, and handed me the flyer.
I put it up in the laundry room, on the bulletin board, hoping it would be seen by the person who took it.
The odd woman was in the laundry room.
“Why you like that ol’ jar?” she said.
“Because I don’t own a lot of things here and the jar keeps me company by glowing at night.”
“You silly,” she said and left.
But the next day, there was a bag by my door and the jar of sunlight was back. It had been opened and the switch messed with, but a little work and it was next to me, charging up while I did my work outside.
I’m glad he’s back. He hasn’t shared his adventures yet.

–Image: Graphite on Bristol Board, Quinn McDonald, Story and image (c) 2008, All rights reserved.

The Jar of Colors

When I woke up, I was in a hammock. The canning jar was lying on the sand, its lid open. Leading up to it was a set of tiny bird footprints and what seemed to be. . .broomstraw.

“You stink of alcohol,” I said to the jar.
“Be a friend and rinse me out,” it moaned.
I took it to the ocean and filled it with water. A sharp arc of water and something that smelled like jet fuel shot past my ear.
“That witch can DRINK,” the jar moaned.
“Were you with Pris last night? And the bird?”
“Ummmm. No. Absolutely not. I was powering up for a trip to see the weavers,” the jar said.
“What a liar,” I muttered. Using my shirt, I dried it out and shut the lid, pulling a bit of burlap sack out of the hinge as I closed the lid.
“Stop slamming the lid so hard!” it hissed.
I chuckled. The beach was alive with music and dancing, flowers, sunlight and joy.
“It’s a perfect day, what do you want to do?” I asked the jar.
“Sleep. Hold my lid until the thumping goes away,” the jar muttered.
“Oh, come on,” I cheered him on, “Weavers don’t make much noise.”
I wasn’t sure which direction to go in when I saw the Bird of Paradise, pointing the way.
“This has an Alice in Wonderland feel to it,” I said, “Signs keep showing up, but I’m not sure if they are real or not. And that old woman said we had to separate Truth from Fact. But let’s go left. It seems to be the right way.”
“Stop confusing me,” said the jar. “L’Enchanteur mentioned the mosaics. Let’s go see those.”
“Fine, we can go see the weavers later,” and I turned in the other direction.
We walked through town and asked directions for the mosaics.
“You don’t go to them, they come to you,” one person said.
“Just wait awhile and keep your eyes open,” said another.
I was starting to get hungry, but the Canning Jar wasn’t interested in food.
“Let’s walk down here and see if we can find the mosaics,” it said.
The “here” was an alley. I wasn’t so sure, but so far the people seemed friendly enough. If a little vague.
We had just stepped into the alley when thunder rumbled across the sky and the alley turned dark. I didn’t like it. I began to run out of the alley. A shadow fell across the way.
I stopped until I could see what it was attached to. It was big.
And impressive.
A lion mosaic stood at the end of the alley. It looked one way, then at me.
“Give me the jar,” the mosaic lion said.
“Can’t. I need it to get back home,” I said.
The lion turned toward me. He stepped into the alley. It began to rain. With the lion at one end, and the length of the alley behind me, I thought I’d make a run for it. I spun on the slick asphalt, and as I began to run, the Canning Jar slipped out of my hands. I turned to pick it up, but the lion scooped it up.

I couldn’t let him keep it, but I wasn’t sure I could win the fight with a lion, either. That meant I had to act fast. I reached over and the lion swatted at me. I glanced at the jar. It had never been so dark.
“What do you want with that useless jar?” I asked.
“I thought you needed it to get home,” the lion said.
“No, I said, you needed to go home,” I lied.
“I need a gift to appease Triton,” the lion said. “I hate getting wet, so i thought I’d throw him the jar and he’d be appeased.”
“That jar isn’t going to appease Triton,” I said, “It’s an old canning jar. I saw a nice bird of paradise back on the path from the beach, he may like that more.”
The lion considered this. He shook the jar, which rattled slightly, but was silent and dark.
“Maybe you’re right,” said the lion. The jar bounced slightly as he dropped it, and rolled toward my feet. I scooped it up and slipped past the lion as he looked toward the Beach Road.
“PPPLLLPTTTT” yelled the canning jar. “I got a-wa-aay”
I didn’t even wait to see what the lion was doing, I was racing down the street, away from the beach. I needed some space between that angry cat and me. Truth was, he was the faster runner. But it was a fact that sculpture can’t outrun panicked human. We were gone in a flash.
“Are you insane?” I yelled when we were safely out of the lion’s reach.
“Are you kidding me?” the jar said, “I got you out of the lie by playing dumb and dark. It’s time to eat. I hope you have some money in those pockets.”

–Lion mosaic: The Lion of Flanders, Ilona J. Passino, San Marcos, Ca. Stained glass & Italian marble mosaic. Photographs of lion and bird of paradise by Quinn McDonald (c) 2008. All rights reserved.

Under the Water and Up the Stairs

It’s not easy to strangle a jar, so I took it with me. It had dumped me unceremoniously at the wrong end of the beach, and it wasn’t till evening, when I saw the fires on the other side of the dunes, that I found the other members of the group. Muttering threats, I took the jar and trudged across the dunes and back down to the spit of land that stuck into the strange waters.

The jar and I were welcomed by the women. I felt awkward in my nightie, but I wasn’t alone being surprised by the portal. We shared what we had–the jar had contained some chocolate and a pair of gloves too small for me. I freecycled them to a woman who had a pair of clamdiggers (pants cut off at the calves). We had a happy evening of pooling our goods and sharing stories, food and drink.

I noticed that while Enchanteur had sent the others on the road with a magic pack, I had none. But the jar kept surprising me with odd gifts. I wondered if I had wandered into that antique shop by accident after all. If I closed my eyes to rest, I’d wake up with a rattle of the jar lid. There’d be something next to it that hadn’t been there before. Once it was a text, with writing in an imagined alphabet. Another time it was a square of cloth. I wrapped the text in it. The other women told me the importance of keeping gifts safe and using only cash for transactions.

“Just like real life,” I thought.

Some of the women were leaving for a boat trip, others for a swim. I went for a swim, taking the jar with me. Beneath the waves was a sort of after-image of Oz. It wasn’t emerald, it was red coral. The streets twisted through turrets of copper and towers of spiny oyster shell. The sun was red in the sky, but not threatening. It was breathtaking.

When I got back to the surface, I was on an island. The jar spat out some shells. They weren’t particularly special, but I put them in the pack and took them with me to find what the island was about.

The path from the beach was steep. I found myself in sandals and a dry outfit. I didn’t even question it, but the urge to strangle the jar had subsided considerably.

At the top of the dunes, a path curved to a house. A light shone on the gate and the jar began to vibrate. It seemed to be pleading with me for something. I went through the gate and up the stairs. The jar hummed with longing. I realized it wanted to communicate with the gate light. Hanging, the jar on the hook at the top of the stairs, I entered the house.

An old woman sat in the living room, reading. I stood in the doorway, uncertain.

“Don’t be a ninny, come on in,” the crone said, not unkindly.

“I have no idea why I’m here,” I said. The crone looked at me steadily.

“You mean right now, or in general?” she asked.

“Actually, both,” I replied sheepishly.

“You are on a journey. You will be given gifts that are useful and those that are not. You have to decide which is which. You choose your adventure, you become who you need to become. Some things are more important than others, but what is important to others may not be important to you. Everything is your choice, including your experience. When you come back you will not be the same, but if you try to figure out a goal, you are a fool.” She stood, painfully, and handed me the text she had been reading.

“You dropped the text your jar gave you. Better learn how to read it,” she said and began to walk down the hall.

“Do you mean read the jar as in ‘figure it out,’ or read the text?” I asked.

She turned in the half light of the hall. “That’s for you to figure out,” she said, “And for heaven’s sake, learn how to separate truth from fact.” And she dissolved into the dark.

“Judas Priest,” I muttered, “this is complex.” I headed for the door, took the humming lantern from the hook and made my way back to the beach. The encounter had been so odd, I was afraid I’d forget it. I rifled through the packet of cloth until I found a pencil stub and using the margins of the text I could not understand, I wrote down what I did.

–Quinn McDonald, (c) 2008. All rights reserved.

The Canning Jar

The jar was on a shelf of an antique store. I’d lost sight of it when I sneezed. Glory, it was dusty in that place. And I’m not sure what I was doing there, it’s not like I’m an antique-lover. But the jar somehow fascinated me. It was ordinary, a regular canning jar, but it was clouded over with dust and age.

I lifted it off the shelf, It was surprising heavy. It seemed to hum in my hands.
“Wonder what’s in this old thing?” I thought. I tried to pry up the device that holds down the lid, but no luck. There was some writing on the jar. I couldn’t make it out, but it looked like an alphabet of some sort.

I took it home and stuck it on a shelf. That night, I had peculiar dreams–beaches and people calling me. I awoke with a start, just in time to see the room get darker. Had the jar been . . .glowing? Can’t be. I tossed and turned and finally fell back into a fitful sleep. The next day I inspected the jar carefully. Ordinary. With a stuck lid. Nothing more.

It was an overcast day, and I had work to do. But I felt oddly restless. I kept stumbling across the word “beach” –on a travel poster, in two articles online. One about the Phoenician alphabet. Another in the story of Polyhymni, the muse of eloquence. The picture showed her with a finger in her mouth. It was supposed to make her look thoughtful. It made her look like she was eating chocolate. . .melted. . .on the beach. Funny, how some words will just stick in your head like music.

By midnight, I was exhausted. Spent too much time with client work, not enough on my own. Again, I woke up and thought I saw the jar glowing. I fell back asleep, and this time, when the dream came, the jar was glowing.
“Pick me up,” said something from inside the jar.
“Just as long as I don’t have to kiss you,” I said groggily.
“Open the lid,” the jar commanded.
“I can’t, I tried,” I said.
“Well, try again. What, you are going to quit with just one try?”
“Smartass jar,” I muttered, and then put it down. “What if you are some sort of enchanted thing and I get in trouble, like Pandora?” I asked.
“This is about muses,” the jar said, “and you have to release one into your world.”
That didn’t sound too troublesome, so I pulled up on the handle.
This time the lid flew open, and the word “Clio” rang in my ears like a cymbal.
“Clio?” I asked the jar.
“She created the Phoenician alphabet that’s on the back. You saw it, but didn’t recognize it. And now, hang on to your slippers!”
Before I could say another word, the jar began to tremble and hum. Much like when I picked it up in the store, but louder. Automatically, I held it tighter. Good thing, too, as the room began to spin, and the night turned dark. Stars spattered across the sky, whirling in patterns. I could see constellations I’d never seen before, ones I’d never noticed. A dragon, a bagel in the mouth of a crow, a cactus.

And then, splat! I was on. . .a beach. I inspected myself first. Slippers, nightgown, and . . .the jar. It was intact.
“Now what?” I asked. It didn’t say anything. I felt foolish, talking to a jar.
I picked it up, noticed it was closed, and looked around.
There was no one else. I was alone.
The waves hissed at my feet.
Just my luck, I go on a magical journey and I’m too late. Everyone else is already gone.
But too late for what? And where am I? Trapped on an island with a talking jar? Just my luck. I should have brought chocolate.

–(c) 2008 Quinn McDonald