[The auction for this Significant Object,

with story Mark Frauenfelder, has

ended.Original price: $1 Final
price: $23.]

Matt saw the tiny blue bottle on the

third step of the main entrance to the
Los Angeles Central Library. It was
next to a sleeping man, obviously
homeless. A $100 bill, rolled-up, was
protruding from the bottle’s open
neck. Matt slyly scooped up the bottle
on his way into the library. He hid the
bottle in his fist until he got to a desk
with side partitions.

A chipped decal on the bottle read,

“Arrow De Luxe Apricot Flavored
Brandy.” He pulled the rolled-up bill
from the neck. When he unrolled it, it
was a just note printed on what
looked like a $100 bill. He’d picked up
these phony bills before. They were
religious tracts. What kind of religion
tries to win members by pulling a
dirty trick? he wondered.

Matt dropped the note on the ground and pocketed the bottle. It looks like an antique, he
thought. I might get some money for it. He barely made it to the computer card catalog
when the bottle appeared in his mouth. The oddly ribbed neck protruded from his lips,
while the rest of the bottle uncomfortably occupied his mouth, pushing his tongue down
and preventing him from closing his jaws completely.

He pulled the bottle out, tossed it on the table. It spun and skidded across the table, clanking
on the floor. He walked quickly towards the exit. In five seconds, the bottle reappeared in
his mouth. This time he yanked the bottle and threw it on the ground. It made a loud noise
when it shattered. The other library visitors looked at him, startled. Matt ran. The bottle
returned to his mouth, intact, before he was outside. He looked for the sleeping man, but he
was gone.

He ran down 5th street, throwing the bottle onto the sidewalk every time it appeared in his
mouth. After nineteen attempts to get rid of it, it felt like it had gotten bigger. What had the
note said? He went back into library to look for it. It wasn’t there. People stared at the crazy
man with the blue thing sticking out of his mouth, crawling on his hands and knees. He
finally found the note under the shelves near the desk.
This time, he read it:

This bottle is going to appear in your mouth in two minutes. If you pull the bottle out of
your mouth, it will reappear in your mouth in five seconds. If you attempt to prevent the
bottle from reappearing in your mouth by filling your mouth with another object, you
could choke or burst your cheek when the bottle returns to your mouth and displaces
 the object. In addition, every time you remove the bottle from your mouth, it will grow
in size by one tenth of one percent. Unless you sell the bottle to another person and
money changes hands, the bottle will remain in your mouth until you die. When you die,
it will go back to where you found it. You must reveal this paragraph verbatim to
anyone you attempt to sell the bottle to.

In the days that followed, Matt stopped going to work. His wife left him, even after he
demonstrated to her the bottle’s cruel magic. He drank yogurt, applesauce, and blended
food though a straw. He couldn’t sleep. He was afraid to pull the bottle out of his mouth
again. He did it one more time, though, setting it next to a penny on a black tablecloth
draped over a chair. He snapped a photo of it with his cell phone camera. He rushed, not
giving the camera’s autofocus enough time to do its job. The photo turned out blurry, but it
would have to do.

Maybe if I write the description as a work of fiction, he thought, someone will buy the
bottle.