Joy in a Bottle

There lived a man in a tiny village who was well known as the best potion maker in the land. This was not by chance.  He made sure that his fame was kept alive and well.

Every few years he would take on a new apprentice.  One year he chose a promising boy from the foundling house.  He took this boy in and set him to simple tasks until he trusted him around the cauldron.  But he refused to let the boy into the workshop when he made his most profitable potion.

Instead he would send the boy to nearby villages to buy special ingredients. He would tell the boy to go to every vendor in the market asking for it, announcing that his master was making his special potion again.  It was a different ingredient every time, from a three-eyed frog toenail, an albino bat wing, tears from a mermaid.  The boy always asked how he would know the ingredients were real.  The master would say he didn't care if they were real, he just cared that people knew he was brewing again. And he would know if he could use the ingredients when he saw them.

So the boy traveled far and wide to bring back the strange items for his master.  His master would peer inside the little pooches, and then usually laugh.  Most of the items ended in the trash, though some he was instructed to put in the stew for that evening.  Rarely did the master shrug and take the item into his workshop.

The boy would ask the master how it was that he was able to make his special potion. And the master would respond differently every day. The first day he said it was because he didn't answer questions from silly boys. Another day he said it was because he listened to the birds every day at sunrise. The next day he said he'd seen the cranky baker stub his toe on the walk back from church. The following day he said he could bottle joy because he'd watched a family bury someone they had loved, and there was no better way of commemorating the life that had just passed.

No matter that his methods seemed to vary every day, his customers always seemed happy.  They would flock to his hut as soon as the apprentice started on his buying missions. The master always had enough for his visitors for a few days, until he decided he had made enough joy for the time being.  Then he would put up a little sign outside his shop and he would set his apprentice to making more stews and more balms and more elixirs.

One day the master announced that the apprentice had learned all that he needed, and it was time for him to go out into the world and set up his own business. The apprentice protested, for the master had never passed along his secret for bottling joy in a way the apprentice could replicate. But the master refused any further explanation, and sent the young man on his way.

The young man settled in another village and worked hard, though he always saved time to listen to the birds every day at sunrise. Soon he was set up with a tidy business for himself. He married a local lass, and together they started to make their family grow, almost beyond what he could support. So he worked harder, and all the while he wished he could bottle joy and draw more people to his little hut.

Then one day, suddenly, his family shrank. He lost his lass and a new child in one blow, his potions helpless to save them. He wallowed in despair until the funeral, then on his way back he stubbed a toe against a rock sticking out of the road. He stopped suddenly, his children crowding around him silently, more trying to clutch for a hand than he had hands to offer. Then he started up again suddenly, hurrying home with his children in tow. He went in to his workshop, and he sat down to cry, a vial at the ready to catch his tears.

It was a simple matter to arrange for a local woman to look after his children while he was gone. The whole village knew of his loss, and understood his sudden need to travel. He promised to be back within a fortnight, and he left his oldest with instructions for dispensing potions if any were needed while he was gone. He had to squash some qualms about leaving his children so soon after they lost their mother. But he didn't feel that he could be a proper father for them as he was, and that the whole family would benefit if he was successful. So he set out for his old master's hut.

It took him almost a week to get there, and when he arrived he was greeted by a new apprentice and a sign on the door that the master was not making his special potion. He asked to see his old master anyways.

The master eventually recognized him, and then greeted him warmly, offered him a seat at one of the chairs by the fire, and asked what brought him back to the village.

"I have brought you something to make one of your special potions with," the old apprentice replied.

"You have indeed, how thoughtful!" the old master cheerfully replied. "What have you brought for me?"

The old apprentice drew the vial out of a bag and held it up for the old master to see.

"Ah, mermaid tears, is it?" there was a glimmer of a smile in the old man's eyes.

"No, my tears, after I buried my wife." The old apprentice replied.

The smile was gone from the eyes, replaced with sudden sadness, and understanding compassion. "Ah" was all the old master said.

"I wish..." the old apprentice paused. "I'm not here to ask you how you make your special potion. I don't care about that right now. But I would very much like to take some joy back home with me again, and I was hoping you could make me some."

The old master nodded and creakily stood up from his chair, and led them into the workshop. It had not changed at all since the old apprentice left it, though everything seemed a bit smaller.

There were two chairs identical to the ones by the fire, and his old master gestured for him to sit there as well. Then he rummaged in a cupboard, and returned with a small glass with a splash of amber liquid.

The old apprentice sniffed the contents of the glass and raised an eyebrow at his old master. "This isn't your special potion..?" he asked.

"No," his old master agreed. "Usually I add other things to it, modify the taste, the appearance, dilute the alcohol. But I don't need to do that for you."

"Your special potion... is just mead?" The old apprentice asked. "You are telling me that this whole time you've just been giving people spirits, and they think you have sold them joy?" He felt anger rising in him, both for all of the years he had longed for the truth, and the truth itself.

"Not at all," his old master said, then chuckled. The old apprentice had to restrain himself from chucking the glass at the old man's head, but then he began speaking again. "People have been coming to me for joy for decades, and you know what I can tell you boy? It always turns out that there's something holding them back from having that joy in their life. I don't give them joy in a bottle. I give them a drink they think will make them feel joyful. That makes them start talking. And then we talk about their problems. And we keep talking, until three things happen." the old man paused here to drink from his own glass of mead. "First, they feel listened to. Second, they've hit upon a solution to the problems they can fix. Third, we agree that they should stop fretting over what they can't change."

"That's it?" the apprentice asked.

"That's all I can do," the old man said, sounding genuinely forlorn. "But a lot of them keep coming back, and that is enough to tell me that it works."

"But if they keep coming back... you haven't really fixed any of their problems." the old apprentice persisted.

"Joy is something that can't be fixed, boy," the old master replied.

"I know" the old apprentice said, and swallowed sharply, thinking of his wife. "I just..." here he paused. "I just can't imagine how talking about losing my life will bring me any joy."

"Have you thought about talking about your wife? And how she brought you joy when she was alive?" the old master countered.

The old apprentice inhaled sharply. "No, I can't imagine that I can possibly talk about that," he answered truthfully. He felt that talking about her would rip him apart.

"I see," the old master said, and sighed again. "That's a pity, I would have like to hear all about her. But you have only been gone a handful of years, I'm sure you just married her.

Not much to tell anyways."

"I've been gone more than a decade master," the old apprentice rebuffed crankily. And we were married for much of that time. In fact, we've had many children together. There are many stories I could tell you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, how the time flies," his old master replied. "Most of that time you say, does that mean you met her as soon as you left me?"

"No, it was several years later, at a fair," the old apprentice began telling his old master the story. And then he found himself telling other stories, each one gently pried out of him by the wizened man sitting across from him in the darkening workshop. He talked for countless hours, barely pausing when his old master gestured him to start a fire going, and he automatically obeyed, as he had done so many times before.

He only fully realized what his old master had done when they both finished laughing at the end of a story. He stopped talking and stared at the glass in his hand. He'd barely touched any of the contents.

"I knew you wouldn't need that," the old master said. "You were always a talker."

The old apprentice found himself smiling. "I still can't believe this is what you've been doing all these years." And in a gulp he drained the rest of the drink in front of him.

"I did try to tell you," the old master laughed.

"No you didn't, all you did was teach me to listen to birds!"

"Ah, but that was just training, listening is an important part."

The old apprentice closed his eyes. He was suddenly very weary. His old master saw his expression and unfolded himself from his chair. "Come, it is past supper time. We shall eat, and then we shall sleep. I'm all out of my special potion for tonight."

He did as his old master ordered, and slept well on a pile of mats on the floor of the workshop. He awoke to the sound of birds, and his old master sitting by the window.

The new apprentice was making breakfast, and the three of them were soon eating a hearty meal. When they were done the old master dismissed his apprentice.

"Well boy, are you going to stay for some more of my potion today?" he asked.

"No, I think I must return to my family," the old apprentice said. "I hoped to return to them as the father they once knew, but I suppose they will have to make do with me as I am."

"They'll adjust, they'll have you as an example" the old master said confidently.

"An example of what?" the old apprentice asked.

"How to adjust to living with yourself" the old master offered.

The old apprentice grunted and rolled his eyes at this, and his old master laughed at expressions he had seen many times, long ago. Then the old apprentice was chuckling too. In this mood they stood up from the table, and the old master walked his old apprentice to the door of the hut.

"Thank you," the old apprentice said sincerely, then he reached into his pocket for his coin pouch. "How much-" but his old master waved a hand.

"You paid me, remember? You brought me something for my potions."

"You aren't going to put my tears in a potion. You're more likely to use them to water your garden" the old apprentice retorted.

"And how nicely my plants will grow because of it. Now be off, return to your family, and bring them my best wishes!"

The old apprentice hugged his master then, and was surprised at the strength he felt in the return embrace. "And next time you need some joy," his old master continued, "bring the rest of your family so I can meet them. Who knows, one of them might even make a good apprentice."