The Obstinate Bottle

By

J.E. Deegan

“Have you finished interrogating the prisoner?” asked Major Coke.

“Sorry to say we haven’t, Major,” replied Sergeant Sprite. “He’s proving pretty obstinate, Sir… very tough to break. But I have our best personnel working him over. He can’t last much longer.”

Major Coke was not pleased with that answer. “Look, Sergeant,” he said testily, his face bright red. We need to know the meaning of that message we pulled out of him. For all we know his side might be planning an attack on one of our production plants. We’ve slowly but surely been pushing his kind aside for the past few years. We can’t allow an uprising now when we just about have this conflict won.”

Sergeant Sprite was green… a rookie in this type of brutal interrogation. A year ago he was in an aluminum plant in Franklin, Kentucky, being molded into something he knew his family would be proud of. For a moment he reflected upon Franklin and how each morning he loved to look out the window and see the mountain dew sleeping on the gentle slopes of the Smokey Mountains. But that tranquil scene was a thing of the past. He was here now, thousands of miles from Franklin and facing a foe that could spell the end of him and his kind. Now he was a soldier, a “can-do-it type” of guy, his superior officers had bragged. This soldier, they had said, can be the best interrogator this branch of the service has ever had.

But look at me now, he thought to himself. There’s cold sweat running down me from top to bottom, and my insides are fizzing up.

“Sergeant!” The major’s thick, syrupy voice scattered his thoughts. “Snap out of it! You look as though you’re about to explode.”

“Uh… yes, Sir,” the Sergeant managed to spit out. “No need to worry, Major. Everything’s under control now.”

The Major eyed him suspiciously and leaned forward. The gleam from his chrome helmet made the Sergeant squint. “Well, it had better be under control, Sergeant Sprite, or I’ll have to send you to have a chat with Dr. Pepper.” The Major smiled grimly. “You haven't forgotten what happened to Private Fresca, have you?”

The Sergeant stiffened and managed to mutter, “No, Sir.” He full well knew that sessions with Dr. Pepper could crush those who were considered weak at the seams. The doctor’s patients were often forced to endure a long stay in the brig followed by months of physical and mental re-bending and reshaping. Some, like Private Tab Fresca, simply couldn't take the torment poured upon them by the doctor. Fresca suffered a metal breakdown and was drummed out of the military and into an unknown fate.

The Sergeant snapped to attention. “I’m ready to go back to work, Major.”

“Then get to it, Sergeant Sprite, because I don’t want to think that you’re running out of pep, see?”

“I do indeed, Sir.” The sergeant spun on his heels and marched briskly toward the interrogation room where the prisoner was being held. Great gobs of goose grease! he said to himself, now free from the Major’s imposing presence. That guy must think he’s wearing a royal crown.

His insides foaming, the Sergeant stormed into the interrogation room. One way or another, he said to himself, I’ll make that guy cough up what he knows. His adversary stood stiffly against a wall, glaring down at one of the Sergeant’s men, a small Corporal everyone called Squirt. But the Sergeant was no dummy; he could see right through his prisoner’s smugness. He knew it was an act… a phony show of bravado meant to convince the Sergeant that he couldn’t be broken.

“We’ll just see about that,” Sergeant Sprite muttered. He approached the figure against the wall and stood eye to eye with him. “You’re made of glass, pal, and I can see right through you,” he gruffly said. “You’ve been obstinate long enough. You either tell me what that message you were carrying means or I’m gonna’ break you into a million pieces! Got that?!” Before the prisoner could answer, Sergeant Sprite turned to Squirt and said, “Give me that hammer!”

Corporal Squirt looked dumbly at his hand a moment then at Sergeant Sprite. “But Sergeant,” he said shakily. “The rules of interrogation say that we can’t use the hammer, we can only threaten a prisoner with it.”

“Look, Squirt,” Sergeant Sprite shouted. “Our entire existence hangs in the balance. Either he talks or all the progress we’ve made against him and his kind will be lost. Give me the hammer!”

Corporal Squirt quickly complied.

The Sergeant raised the hammer in the air. “Have you a last request?” he spat at the prisoner. “A bottle of water perhaps… or a bottle of beer, huh? Do you need a bottle of something to comfort you? Well, too bad! This hammer through your neck is all you’re gonna’ get!” The Sergeant raised the hammer threateningly above his head.

Emptied of all resistance, the prisoner quivered a moment against the wall. “No… no, don’t!” he pleaded. “I’ll talk.”

And talk he did. Over the next hour he gave the Sergeant dates and names; he gave him places and times. By the end of that hour Sergeant Sprite knew all there was to know about the massive coordinated attack the enemy was planning.

The Sergeant’s job was done. All he had to do was turn over the information he had gathered to his superiors.

Having no further use for the prisoner, he swiftly raised the hammer above his head. As he brought it down, he heard the prisoner’s ghastly scream followed by the crisp sound of breaking glass. He then turned to Squirt and said, “Sweep up this mess and get rid of the evidence.”

As he moved down the hall toward Major Coke’s headquarters, he felt a brief surge of compassion for the foe he had just destroyed. Then he smiled, knowing he had saved his kind from oblivion and hoping he would receive medals from the President and adulation from his peers. His hometown might even have a ticker-tape parade in his honor.

“Well, Sergeant?” Major Coke said impatiently.

Sergeant Sprite told his commanding officer what he wanted to hear.

***

Sergeant Sprite did become a hero. He was sent back home where he received a slew of medals from the President and the adulation of his countrymen. He was also honored with a ticker-tape parade in his hometown of Franklin, Kentucky. What’s more, the town erected a stature of him that stands in front of the aluminum plant.

You see, for decades glass bottles of all shapes and sizes had been the only means of housing the variety of beverages humans consumed. That simply was the way it was done. But some forty years ago, aluminum cans began to overtake bottles in popularity. Cans were lighter, easier to make and more easily recycled. Terrified they would become obsolete, the bottles organized and declared war on the cans. The battles over the years were horrific – the wasted remains of smashed cans and broken bottles littered dump sites and roadways all over the world. But despite their vicious aggressiveness, the bottles steadily lost ground in the war against the cans. In desperation, they planned one last mighty assault against the cans’ production facilities.

The plans for that operation were in a message the captured bottle carried as it tried to float furtively across the Atlantic Ocean to operatives in Europe. It was captured, however, by one of the tin cans the cans had on patrol and was sent to the interrogation center where it remained obstinate and refused to divulge the secrets of the message.

Refused that is, until Sergeant Sprite finally broke the obstinate bottle.

#