By drone alone

One day while sitting at home, I was basking in the sun from the sliding glass doors. Meditating whilst my body was splayed out, I heard a whirring sound approaching. Opening an eye, I saw that my video hadn't changed, so it wasn't a commercial playing. Then, a shadow fell over my face where instead there had been sunlight.

Looking over, I saw something flying... no hovering. It was one of those Amazon drones. "Weird," I thought. "I hadn't ordered anything off of Amazon in a while, nor do I recall mom and dad making an order." I pondered, "Ah sh*t, it might've been one of those scammers texting me about my account being hacked. I'll have to send a report."

As the drone hovered, I noticed its box was especially peculiar. Something didn't seem quite right. Watching the drone, I'd begun to think that it was being extra cautious. As if it wasn't just following a GPS program, but as if somebody was diligently piloting this thing. "That's odd. I never saw 'drone pilot' on their careers website. Is it like a contracted position or something?"

Upon placing the box down, the drone let go and buzzed away faster than a hornet making a beeline at an aggressor. Something was up, but I didn't know what. However, I knew that I couldn't leave the thing outside. With porch pirates on the rise lately, it'd be my job to make sure that this package was delivered properly to its rightful owner.

"Ugh, it'll be all day with this, won't it?" Hoping that I had the day off for some rest and relaxation, I figured that those lazy dreams had been dashed. Little did I know that this surprise would be far more effort that I initially expected.

Unlocking my door, I walked out into the freezing cold of the northern hemisphere. November had been a particularly cruel month for flash blizzards. Just recently after having left my place of work did my car get stuck while driving uphill trying to reach a gas station. Breaking the ice crust that laid atop of my back porch, I waltzed into the snow, my breaths visible in the cold, frosty air.

Picking up the box, I noticed the its design wasn't for mere aesthetics. There were small little airholes laced and overlaid with one another. It appeared to have been a box within a box, and their holes were interspersed with one another. No two holes overlapped each other. Hurrying inside and setting the box on the carpet gently, I slammed my sliding door shut. Turning around, I knew this, the only reason why there would be airholes in a box would be if it contained a living being.

I found it quite odd that I hadn't felt anything moving from inside of it, though. If it were a puppy, kitten, or even a chinchilla I would've felt or heard its claws, or its paws. The same thing if it were a lizard, but if it were a snake it might lay still more especially due to the cold. However, wouldn't I hear it slithering around, bumping into the walls? "Oh God, somebody sent me a box of worms or something like snails. Could this've been from my Aunt? She knows I'm growing her a tree, but I don't need composting help."

Then my mind thought of something worse. I recall watching on YouTube a series of videos of survivors from acid attacks. "Ooo, that'll hurt. This could all just be some ploy to bring me in close for an attack. A simple spring trap could be all that's needed. Since, the box has got holes in it that's all that they need to bait me in. Darn my compassion, but thank you skepticism."

So, wanting to make sure that I would be well protected, I proceeded to dress myself incase I needed to leave my apartment a.s.a.p. If it were a light prank, the worst I could expect would be a glitter bomb or a fart spray. If it this were sent by someone with malevolent intentions however, I'd have to be extra careful. My mind raced as I thought about scorpions, wasps, black mambas, and even the bottle of hydrochloric acid that my chemistry teacher had at school.

I remember just standing slightly over that large glass jar as I felt the vapors burn a bit of the inside of my nose. The stinging pain in my nostrils forcing me to exhale for fear of damaging my lungs. Dressing well, I prepared myself to open the box. I had tin foil pans and my sharpest kitchen knife taped to a broomstick. Placing the pans overtop of the broomstick, I stood away holding another tin pan in hopes of shielding myself for any spring launched assault.

Moving the broomstick carefully as to not harm any living thing within the box, the knife cut through the packing tape easier than it cut through onions. Hearing a *thump* come from the box, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't surprise me if it were a living thing, or just a robotic trap meant to entice my curiosity. Either way I want to keep my distance."

Rotating around the box, cutting off its tape, I began to sweat underneath my layers of clothing. Until, it was open. Placing my main door behind me, I used the knife to gingerly open one of the flaps. Looking at my reflection in the sliding doors, I decided that it'd be best to tilt the box away from me. If something was damaged, or something else was let loose, I'd like to be given enough time to escape, and that would mean putting as much distance between myself and the box as much as possible.

"Who their right minds would send me a box without informing me of its contents in the first place?"

Knocking the tin pan off, I saw something breathing in the reflection of the doorway. It was covered- no... it was wrapped in cloth. A floral pattern of daffodils and dandelions decorated the inside of the box, but what was wrapping its main content? Looking for something, anything, I eventually found a small set of eyes. Although they were closed, I knew what it was.

"Is that a- Is that a-," "Is that a baby?!"

Lifting the box ever so gently, the small bundle of joy rolled out onto my carpet onto the floor. Still asleep, it stirred just a little, then went back to quietly breathing. Poking through one of the box's outside corners, I shook everything outside of it, before tossing it behind my couch. I've made myself paranoid about potential traps. With such delicate cargo, I'd expect there to be an alarm system. Yet, the only sound coming from the box as it hit the wall and bounced from behind my couch onto the floor was that of empty cardboard.

Running over to the couch, I checked the box, by peering over the edge and found out that- it was just a normal box... "Okay, something weird's going on here."

"It's an actual regular box, nothing unordinary about it, but what about the baby? Please tell me it's just a realistic doll."

Approaching the little human, I stared at it for a little while before deciding, "Yep, it's real alright." Scooping up the young one in my arms, I felt the coldness of the blanket. "Goodness you're freezing." Feeling my company and hearing my voice, it started to cry. Panicking, a little bit, I pulled out my phone to hastily search for the lyrics to hush little baby. Once it heard the deepness in my voice, the infant was lulled off to sleep.

Relieved for the moment, I called my parents asking them for advice. As usual dad was late to the draw on picking up the phone, but mom picked up rather quickly.

"Hey Thavy! I've been thinking about you. How've you been?"

"Hey mom."

"Yeah."

"You're not gonna believe this."

"Okay, what is it? Is it something bad? Did you get fired from your job? Are you hurt or in the hospital or something?"

"Whoa, what's with all the negative thoughts?"

"Well, when I thought of you something told me that I should be praying. I didn't know what, but I just knew that I had to."

"Well, I'm in perfect health so far, but this is a different sort of bad news."

"What is it?"

"An Amazon drone stopped by and delivered me a baby."

"..."

She stood quiet for a moment, trying to process what I just said. Now as a child I had an overactive imagination, but to her this took the cake. I mean, she knows that I write fiction stories and entries for competitions on Vocal, but this seemed incredulous to her.

"Okayyy... Who were you sleeping around with and were you not using protection?"

"No, mom, it's not like that!"

"Are you dating a single mom and she left her kid on your doorstep to take care of?"

"Oh, mom, geezus. No. It's not like that either!"

"Okay, then what is it?!"

"Repeat back to me what I just told you."

"It's not like that?"

"No! The first thing I told you."

"That Amazon delivered you a baby, by drone? Thavy how does that even work? Last I checked delivering people by mail is illegal. Plus, it's Amazon, not the storks. I wouldn't expect you to have a baby until you at least have a fiancé, let alone get married."

"I- I- I know, it sounds, weird, and trust me. I'm not a big fan of this either, but I'm holding a baby in my arms right now and it was just delivered to me via Amazon."

"Well, do you know what to do?"

"I'm planning on going to the store to buy some bare essentials first. I'll have to tell my managers that I may have to use up some vacation or caretaker days first. Thank goodness for the benefits package."

"Alright, record whatever you can on video. I don't want this being a liability against you. It'll be a few hours. I'm gonna drive on up to visit you. Go buy a carrier, some clothes, wipes, diapers, and formula. I'll see you in a few."

"Thanks mom, love you. Bye."

"Bye baby."

*click*

Putting my phone down, I smelled the infant that laid in my arms, and its blanket reeked of ammonia.

"Oh my gosh, this is absolutely filthy." The yellow flowers were mixed with smudges of brown, the blue was faded, and I swore I felt a bit of ice on it too. Unwrapping the baby from its swaddling, I found out that it was a girl. My panic set in even more.

I had three things going against me now that could spell out a couple of years in prison since they all culminated on top of one another. I'm Black, I'm a male, and this is not my child. To make matters worse, it's not just a girl, but she's the very definition of Anglo-Saxon.

...

I remember when I'd gone up to Canada to visit an old friend of mine. You wouldn't think it, but she's Black too. Though we're both mixed, our ratios- I apologize, allow me to be more scientifically accurate. Although her and I are both mixed with Black and White our genotypes just vary differently which displayed rather well in our phenotypes. In laymen's terms, our skin tones were very different.

My friend told me that, "Thavien, my dad had your skin complexion."

"Wait? So, your dad was mixed?"

"Yup."

"Oh my gosh. So that means that-,"

"Yep, everywhere we went he got a nasty side eye from everybody around us. He may have been colored as caramel and myself as milk, but people didn't treat us so sweetly."

"Wow, so you've been called not Black enough too, haven't you?"

"Definitely, but that didn't stop me from loving my dad no matter what. Bless his soul. Sure, people didn't care for the sight of a Black man with a White daughter, but I stopped caring once I knew that I couldn't change their point of view."

"Hmmm, colorful way of looking at things."

"You can say that again."

...

So, our skin colors may not have been close to similar, but at least I could try to pull it off as potentially being her father. At least I wasn't trying to pull a Rhaenyra and Laenor. Hurrying quickly, I ran a warm bath, then put her blanket in the washing machine. If I was going to leave my place with her, I had to at least make sure that she appeared to be taken well care of.

After having the bath warm her up, I rinsed her off, and wrapped her dry in a warm and fluffy towel that I had spinning in the drying machine. Not having any diapers on me at the moment, I wrapped one of my workout t-shirts around her as gently as I could before swaddling her in another towel. As things were getting cleaned up, I started my car making sure that it was warm before we left for the store.

...

Driving on the way there, I drove slower than I ever had before. Sure, I drove the speed limit, but I didn't drive any faster or slower. Heck, I even put my hazards on just to be safe. Upon reaching the store I headed to the baby aisle a.s.a.p. Thankfully, she'd been rather calm about the whole ordeal. Not once did she cry out in discomfort, fear, pain, hunger, needing to be changed, etc. This baby was more well mannered than most adults.

Looking at baby carriers, footy pajama onesies, formulas, pacifiers, and everything else, I was overwhelmed. I just wanted to keep her safe, protected, well fed, clothed, warm, and with a roof over her head. I didn't know what to purchase or how to go about doing it.

Then, a staff member saw me.

"Can I help you sir?"

I turned to her, a small tear almost left my eye.

"Yes please," the words came out shaky.

"Honey, are you alright?" This lady asked me with the sweetest, honey-filled voice.

Lord forgive me for lying, but I did it to this woman with a straight face (well, more of a sniveling, sobbing one), "I'm sorry ma'am. I just haven't been myself lately. My ex just called me recently and we had a huge argument, then the next thing I know this morning I find out that I'm a father. She had come by and dropped our daughter off at my doorsteps then peeled out of the driveway. We hadn't spoken in months then she goes and pulls this."

"Oh honey."

"And to make matters worse, she blocked me and I can't even contact her parents, brother, or her friends. It's like she wanted to burn every bridge she had with me, but this was the one bridge that she couldn't burn." The tears started rolling, I was not meant for fatherhood this early. "She dropped her off with a blanket and that's all. I have no clothes, diapers, formula, or pacifiers for her."

"Oh honey, don't you worry. I help you out with all you need." Gosh darn, the southern drawl of that woman got dragged out along with every ounce of her maternal instincts. In under half-an-hour I was set with all I needed. Seven onesies, four baby bottles, a baby carrier that could strap in to the back of my sedan, two big bags of diapers, diaper rash cream, baby wipes, along with two weeks supply of formula, I was looking more and more like a dad.

I'll tell you this, I didn't care at all if that lady was working for commission or not. She didn't judge me, she believed me, but most of all she helped me out when I needed it most.

Though my bank account plummeted in savings with the large amount of purchases that I just made, I was gonna be down even more on time with caring for this baby. "What do I name you?" I bounced up and down as her bottle of formula was spinning in the microwave. "That is, if I can name you." She looked up at me with big blue eyes, and her cheeks were as rosy as they were chubby. Grabbing onto my shirt she buried her head into my chest.

It reminded me of my cousin's baby. When I had asked my cousin's husband if I could "rub her widdle cheek" he opened up a side of his baby bjorn. She looked at me, then buried her head into his chest.

My heart was melting, but even though I was glad that I had some rudimentary paternal skills at caring for her, I knew that she wasn't mine, and thus the attachment was growing, but having difficulty sticking.

Then, I heard a knock on my door. Walking over, I cracked it open to see who, then I let out a loud cry.

"MOM!"

"Hey, don't forget me too."

"DAD?! You came too?"

"Well, of course. Your mother told me all about what was going on and I had to see for myself."

My mom's smile started to light up the room, "And aren't you just the cutest little thing!" Without hesitation, she took her from my hands, and held her close.

"So, Thavien, who's the mother?"

"I don't know, but I know I'm not her dad."

"Don't worry. We'll help you take care of her. The first night's always rough. We brought a crib on our way here."

"Thanks, dad."

"First thing tomorrow," mom spoke up, "is we're headed to a CVS pharmacy or Walgreens. We're getting a DNA test done."

"Yeah, but what about the drone," I said.

"We'll worry about that later."