Theme Thursday: Bottles

(Our contribution to Theme Thursday. For those newer to Junk Thief and not acquainted with the ongoing adventures of tragic, talented master architect Louis Sullivan, here is a brief retrospective of past posts.)He had reached the point where he no longer apologized for having a breakfast of sausages and Lorna Doons at 3 p.m. However many bottles had brought him here no longer mattered. Mr. Sullivan only knew that the pursuit of pleasure had only brought him pain.

This latest duo of anonymous friends could offer him nothing but accompaniment to the latest chalice. Whether it was half empty of full no longer mattered. He was his own vessel, a river of numbness running through him as he pushed forward to the falls.Mr. Sullivan could no longer determine if this latest confrontation of demons was real or imagined, just a battle of the amber waves of pain.The bottle uncorked, his life pierced by a spiraling corkscrew. Cork, Ireland, the city where his great-grandparents met over a foamy beer on a foggy night. He thought of Proust spending his final days in a room with walls of cork to muffle the pain. At last he had found a goal to collect enough cork until his room could swallow the fiercest scream.Patrick Street, Cork, Ireland, 1893.