The Perfume Bottle with the Palm Tree
Raymond Pernisky woke up unusually irritable. He knew it was going to be a horrid day and there was nothing he could do about it. It wasn’t as if some event he knew about was awaiting him, it was just this putrid feeling in his gut he got from time to time that foreshadowed doom in his near future. Reluctantly, he pulled his sixty-year old body out of bed then slipped into his oversize bathrobe his mother; Gilda had bought for him only last month. He didn’t know what he would do without her. He loved his mother more than anything in the whole world and they’d been together since the day he’d been born. Other people found it strange that a man lived with his mother his entire life, but Raymond didn’t care because he was happy and his mother was happy and he’d never been hurt.
He walked down the hallway and made his plans for the rest of the day in his head. It would be the usual; Coffee and toast for breakfast, grapefruit for mother, a half glass of orange juice each and then they’d take their walk down to the library together and sit outside on the benches and feed the birds.
As soon as he reached the kitchen, Raymond realized his plans had already been thwarted. It was raining outside. Raymond didn’t like the rain. It meant a bad omen was lurking about, and with the uneasy feeling he woke up with this morning still churning in his gut he knew he was about to face some sort of incurable disaster.
He checked the cupboard and was relieved to discover that the source of his impeding doom wasn’t that they were out of coffee. He put two scoops of fine Hawaiian ground into the filter, added filtered water then turned on Mr. Coffee. Mr. coffee grunted and moaned as he came to life and got to work. When all was done, Raymond poured himself a cup and then he poured one for his mother. She liked it with a little cream and two teaspoonfuls of sugar. Usually she was up by now, but it was Saturday and it was her birthday today. She deserved to sleep in. In fact, Raymond decided, it would be a good idea to serve her breakfast in bed. This would transform Raymond’s foreboding fear of doom into something positive and a little less neurotic. He put the bread in the toaster and set it to heat.
As he walked down the hallway to his mother’s room, he finally understood this irrational fear he’d woken up to this morning. It was his mother. What if something had happened to her in the middle of the night? What if? No. He wouldn’t go there again. He’d fantasized himself into frenzies many times before when dwelling on his mother and her death. He knew she’d have to die some day, but he didn’t want to think about it, deal with it or face it. He’d panic when the time came and that wasn’t now.
He stopped just outside his mother’s door and wondered about the fact that it was closed. She never closed her door unless she was dressing.
“Ma, are you getting dressed” asked he.
There was no reply and Raymond felt his hands growing cold. He reached for the doorknob and turned it with apprehension. He took a deep breath then let the door swing open. What he found shocked him. The room was completely empty. There wasn’t even a dust bunny remaining. The bed was gone, the dresser was gone, and all of her clothing was gone. Raymond’s mother was gone.
He felt his pulse quickening and beads of sweat beginning to gather at the top of his forehead. His hand was shaking so badly that the coffee in his mother’s mug spilled over the edge and bit him on the hand. It was as if a moving truck had arrived in the dead of the night and swept his mother and all of her belongings away with it.
Raymond yelled out for his mother and then he darted back to the kitchen to be rid of the damn cup of hot coffee that was vexing him. He searched the entire house for any sign of his mother. He picked up the phone to call the police finally, and then thought they might think he was crazy. Not only was she gone, but also her entire bedroom had virtually disappeared! Who would believe such a thing? He walked back down the hallway to her bedroom to check again. Perhaps he was still dreaming.
Nothing had changed a wit except that now Raymond noticed one article that had been left inconspicuously in the corner of the empty room. He approached the shiny small thing with both fear and curiosity. It was a small perfume bottle with a sterling silver palm tree on top.
Raymond examined the delicate thing and wondered why of all the things left behind, why she would leave this. He turned it over to discover a small piece of paper glued to the bottom of the bottle. It was written in his mother’s hand. It read: I am in here. Do Not Open.
Raymond gasped and almost dropped the bottle with a fright.
“Mother? Are you really in there” asked Raymond. There was no answer at all. Just the pitter-pattering of the rain outside playing drums on the windowpane.
Raymond Pernisky sunk into the couch in his living room and cradled the tiny perfume bottle with the strange message from his mother on it. The woman who had raised him and whom he’d lived his whole life with had vanished overnight and now seemed to be claiming to be inside this little glass bottle. To add insult to injury, she’d written on the bottle, Do Not Open. He couldn’t understand. If she was in there, didn’t she want out? Had she turned into a genie of some sort? What was happening? Raymond was sure he was losing his mind.
He was sixty years old and his mother, poor Gilda turned eighty today. Of all days to go live in a bottle with a palm tree on top, thought Raymond. She never liked small spaces before. He even seemed to recall she was a tad claustrophobic. Raymond liked to tell himself that he’d stayed with mother all these years because she needed him and he had to take care of her. The truth of the matter was that Gilda had always taken care of Raymond. But things had changed dramatically this morning. All of Raymond’s premonitions upon awakening had come true. It was a disaster. He was on his own for the first time in his life. He was going to have to face the world without her. He held the little bottle up to the light once more. The damn thing looked empty to him. No furniture in there, no clothing, no bed, no mother. His mother was gone or worse, she was in a perfume bottle with a palm tree on top and she was invisible!
Raymond finally filed a missing person’s report a week later. Then he spent the rest of his life searching for his mother. He never found her and he never opened the bottle for fear of losing her if she was indeed inside.
After searching for his mother for ten years, Raymond woke up one morning to an earthquake in the middle of his room. The books fell over in the library, the toiletries in the bathroom crashed to the floor and on Raymond’s bedside table, the perfume bottle with his mother in it, fell to the floor and cracked!
Raymond yelled for his mother as he had done years before on the day she’d disappeared, and again, there was no response. Raymond crazy glued the bottle shut and pretended not to notice the crack or think about the consequences of his mother getting out. He couldn’t imagine it would be such a terrible thing, except for the warning label at the bottom of the bottle that said, “I am in here. Do Not Open.”
A few years later Raymond passed away at seventy-three years of age. His estate was auctioned off and this is the bottle, which Raymond claimed contained his mother. This perfume bottle then came into the hands of my late aunt, Ronni Chasen. She loved collecting these little bottles and upon her untimely death, this perfume bottle was put into my trusted care. The bottle has never been opened by myself or my aunt. 
I have no idea if Raymond's mother was ever in here or if she is still in here, but I do know that Gilda can’t be a bad thing to have around. I sure do hope she finds a good home. Just remember, if you do choose to open the bottle I assume no liability. You have been warned.
THIS PERFUME BOTTLE WITH RAYMOND'S INVISIBLE MOTHER INSIDE IS UP FOR AUCTION ON EBAY AT THE SAME TIME THIS STORY POSTS.
Stay tuned tomorrow for another Twisted Story from Twisted Stuff by Jill Gatsby
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing
