Laska Story Challenge: Champagne!

My dear friend, author Paul Laska, gave me another writing challenge.  It took me far to long to complete it, but here it is!  500 word minimum.


"You're a bottle of champagne at a liquor store.  Someone purchases you for a celebration.  Listening to him, what's the occasion and how is he celebrating?"

Hello my friend!  I am the bottle you have been seeking!  Veuve Clicquot! “The Widow”  One of the finest champagnes ever made!

            Of course, the human couldn’t understand me.  Stupid Americans!  They don’t understand anything that is not English.  But, he bought me along with a California Red and a bottle of Absolut Vodka.  Neither of them spoke French either, but fortunately I speak English.  They didn’t speak much.  The vodka was busy trying to be mysterious, and I think the wine was meditating.

            Eventually, the human put me in the refrigerator, after showing me to a woman.  She was beautiful, with raven colored hair and grey eyes.  She seemed impressed by me- and who wouldn’t be? After all, I am Veuve Clicquot!

            I don’t know how long I spent in the refrigerator.  If the various other occupants that came and went are to be believed, it was several years.  After a year, I stopped seeing leftovers, and started seeing a lot of Chinese food and pre-prepared things from the market.  I saw many more bottles of beer though.  Most of them pretended to be German, but they were American.  They couldn’t even speak German! 

Posers!

One day, the man removed me from the refrigerator.  He was dressed very well in a jacket and tie.  Worthy of an occasion that is worthy of Veuve Clicquot!  He wrapped me in a towel and put me in a cooler with ice and two champagne glasses.  I remember thinking “where are we going in the middle of the day?”  The two glasses said nothing. 

Ah!  A picnic!  It had to be!

Soon the chest opened, and he removed me.  He placed me on top of a stone.  My God- it’s a tombstone!  He placed the glasses net to me and opened me efficiently, yet with little flair.  He must’ve had some practice.  He then poured me into the two glasses, and lifted one.

“Happy five year anniversary, Angel!  I opened the champagne, just like we planned.”

He clinked his glass gently with the other, which sat next to me on the stone.  He then drank a sip. 

Tears started flowing from his eyes.  Water, condensed from the warming glasses and my bottle made us weep as well.

He knelt in front of the stone, where he cried and spoke quietly.  Occasionally he would sip from his glass.  When he finished his glass, he stood.  He took the full glass and poured it out on the ground where he had been kneeling in front of the stone.  He picked me up, looked at me for a long minute, and placed me on the ground in front of the stone.  Near me were some faded, warped pictures pinned my stones to the ground.  He then left a while picking up an old dead and withered one. 

He then packed up the glasses, and put them back in the cooler.  He also pocketed my cork.  He kissed the top of the stone and said “See you soon, Angel.”  And walked away, leaving me mostly full and weeping on the ground next to flowers and a tombstone.

And here I sit, now warm and flat.  Waiting.  Waiting.