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The vial with inky black liquid, sparkling with what seemed like crystal shards or perhaps stars, trapped inside the slender glass case, easily caught her eye.
It was placed on the farthest corner of the dusty shelf in the farthest corner of the little wooden shop as if the owner was deliberately trying to make it forgotten. Deft hands met the fragile glass vial as she carefully picked it up, holding it in her palms. Something about it was so hypnotic, so mesmerizing. It almost felt like the vial was calling out to her, tugging at the very strings that kept her heart in place.
"Would you like to purchase that?" the woman behind the counter asked. She didn't look a day over 30 and she carried herself with sophistication.
"W-What does it do...?" Elo asked.
Offering her hand, the woman wrapped her hand around it and gazed fondly at the vial. It made Elo wonder what was going on through her mind - what memories were flashing through, what past the vial carried, which hands have held it.
"It grants you happiness."
"Happiness... in a bottle?"
The woman smiled. "Yes. I should use that as a marketing strategy. Sounds catchy."
Elo couldn't believe it at first. But in the end, she figured that it wouldn't hurt to purchase it. For something that the woman seemed to be so fond of, she put a ludicrously cheap price on the so-called "bottle of happiness". As the woman started to list it down (that was something Elo had noticed: the little old shop seemed to have very old-fashioned ways, such as writing purchases down rather than punching them into a cash register and manually keeping check of stocks rather than using a computer), Elo asked, "Has it worked before?"
The woman smiled playfully and handed back her purchase.
Before Elo could exit the shop, the woman called back. "I almost forgot. There are two things you need to remember. First, magic changes nothing... at least not permanently. And lastly, whatever magic does, magic can undo."
It was two weeks after she bought the bottle of happiness.
Elo found herself with tears streaming down her face, sitting in the corner of her room as she stared at the vial in her hands. She was debating whether or not she should drink it. She had just come out of a fight with her boyfriend, Mark. He was an aspiring artist and she respected that. She respected his dreams and she wanted to support him with it.
But they were two years out of college, living in a rundown apartment. Mark barely had any gigs and she was the only person who brought money into the house, and it wasn't even enough for the two of them. They were barely scraping by and yet, much to Elo's confusion, Mark is always, always, asking her for money. For a new guitar. For absolutely anything he needed to make his dream come true.
And Elo was tired.
So, closing her eyes, she gulped down the contents of the bottle.
After the thick, murky liquid had made its way down her throat, she counted. One. Two. Three...
She opened her eyes to...
... absolutely nothing. Everything was in place. Nothing had changed. She could still feel the misery of her previous fight with Mark. A fresh wave of sorrow hit her.
Things only got worse after that.
They fought more, Mark didn't get any gigs and became a drunkard, Elo was fired from her job over spilled coffee, Mark started throwing beer bottles at her in his drunken state as she tried to come up with means to obtain money, and they were eventually thrown out of the apartment.
And Elo found herself wanting to go back to the time before she drank that cursed liquid.
Because even though times were tough and the world seemed dull, she would miss how Mark would sing to her every night. The sparkle in his eyes that never seemed to fade no matter how hard things got. How his laughter brought color into her life. The wee moments in early morning, when they'd cook breakfast. Or the rare times when they would be able to eat pork rather than dried fish, tomatoes, and one cup of rice each.
Because in the wee hours of the morning, when he thought she was asleep (but really, he knew she was awake but she didn't need to know that), Mark would stroke her hair and tell her one thing he loved about her. And everything felt right.
In those moments, she always felt that happiness was within her grasp. And she wondered if the moment she lost it was when she allowed her fingers to wrap around that cold vial rather than Mark's warm hands.
As she sat in the cold evening on a dark sidewalk, tears rolled down her face as she spoke in a hoarse voice, "Please, take it back... I don't want it anymore... Please, please, please..."
She shut her eyes tight. And when she opened them...
... she was back in her room, sitting on the floor in the corner, the empty vial still in her hand. She looked around in a daze, feeling confused but, more importantly, relieved.
She heard the front door open. Hurriedly, she scrambled up and stopped short in her tracks when she saw him. He was standing at the sink, his back turned to her. His loose black shirt still somehow showed off the tone of his body. His messy hair covered his eyes and his glasses made him look every bit of a dork that he was. Her dork.
Sneaking up on him, she hugged him from behind. She could feel him tense up, startled, but he started to relax. "What's up?"
Burying her face in his back, she hummed. "Hm... Nothing."
Gently, Mark unwrapped her arms around him and turned around to give her a warm hug. He stroked her hair and placed a kiss on top of her forehead.
"I'm sorry. We'll make it through this."
"I know we will."
She looked up at him and smiled.
"Because being with you makes me happy. You are my happiness."
Elo walked the same familiar road towards the little shop to return the vial and ask the woman about what happened. She had so many questions. But no matter how many turns and detours she made, she never arrived at her destination.
The little shop around the corner was nowhere to be found.