The Package

He made overly certain that the contents of the package remained snuggled safely, pressed between the cotton candy packing peanuts. When he was satisfied that no damage could possibly befall the contents, he closed the brown package and sealed it tightly with bronzed packing tape. As a gesture, he shook the box once, twice, listening, ear pressed against cardboard, for any sign, however miniscule, that the contents were not firmly secured. Should any mishap befall the package, and should the contents within find peril, then his future was no more certain than the weather. Or so he was told.

The note left by Walter in the minutes before his death spelled out explicitly clear instructions on how to package his will, whom to send it to in particular, and, finally, why it was such an important endeavor. Acutely aware of the lack of preparatory time he required, he re-examined the note once more. On the back of the instructions, Walter left an address for him to follow in letters so bold he must have written over them a dozen times.

Each tick of the second hand filled him with an even greater sense of urgency and purpose. Gripping the package and tucking it beneath his arm, he strode, seemingly three steps per stride, to Walter’s front door, pushed the handle, and stepped outside. Walter’s station wagon idled already, anxious to retake the road. He opened the passenger door, buckled the package into the passenger seat, and quickly shut the door again. When he finally took his seat behind the wheel, he breathed a sigh of relief. Walter was prepared; the GPS hummed with life. He rapidly tapped in the four digit address of his destination, stabbed at the city that appeared next, and waited for the satellite to calculate his directions.

Okay, James, he thought, adjusting the rear view mirror. This is absurd. They’ll think you’re crazy. Put you away. And why didn’t you call the ambulance? Walter was pretty specific about that, not calling 9-1-1. James was skeptical of the whole situation, but Walter was deadly accurate on his time of death.

James thought to the morning. His phone screamed for him from rooms away. It couldn’t have been much past seven in the morning, and James was, as his routine dictated, awake with coffee and the newspaper crossword puzzle. ‘Fate’, he wrote, number four across, when prompted with: “Unavoidable end of life”. He smiled smugly, always impressed with his crossword puzzle talents, almost never glimpsing the answers on the opposite page. So the phone hollered for his attention, yelling obscenities in matching, monotonous tones.

The voice on the other end of the receiver was excited. “James!” Walter proclaimed, “I’m going to die today. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“No, Walter,” James said, matter-of-factly. “That sounds quite terrible, indeed. Why are you so excited?”

James could hear the smile through the receiver. “Well, my friend, I’m so excited because I’ve discovered who I will be reborn as. I can’t detail the process; that would require more time than I have left in this vessel.”

Vessel? James thought, concerned. I think Walter’s hit the good stuff again. He rubbed his face. He’s entertained me when I’ve been beyond my senses. I guess I owe it to him to ride the trip with him. He waited for Walter to continue. “Um?”

“Oh, sorry. I got distracted,” Walter confessed. “I’ve written a very specific note for you, James. I ask, as part of my last will and testament, that you follow this note faithfully. If you do so, you will be rewarded.”

James lifted his shoulder. “Okay. Is there anything else you need?”

“Yes! I need you to get to my house by, say, eleven thirty-three. Any later, and I’ll be dead.”

“Oh. Um. I’ll try to be there by eleven. You know, in hopes to avoid missing any of the knitty-gritty details. It sounds complicated.”

Walter snorted. “Beyond a doubt complicated. But it’s all in the notes, too, should you forget anything I say.”

If I understand any of your babbling in the first place, you’ll be lucky. James sighed. “Okay, Walter. I’ll be there in a few hours. Don’t die early.”

“It’s impossible. I tried to shoot myself this morning, around the time I discovered my impending death. The first shot was a dud. I disassembled the pistol, checked the ammo, and tried again with the same results. Click, click, click.” Walter inhaled audibly, exaggeratedly. “Nothing. When I pushed a knife to my skin, it bent. I ran out into traffic, and the oncoming car stalled. Had to help push it to the gas station, I did. Wasted about an hour.”

By this time, James had re-taken his seat at his kitchen table, the squat, square sheets of plastic held up by four metallic legs, the ones that always sat chilled, sending shivers up your body when you pressed against them, placed his pen in his mouth, and re-examined the crossword puzzle, phone cradled between ear and shoulder. He remained silent, partly because he couldn’t fathom what to say to Walt, so clearly coked out of his mind, and partly due to the fact that he was concentrating on seventeen down: “Knowing When a Character Doesn’t”. He tapped the cap of his pen against his teeth once, twice, then whispered, “Hmm.”

“Are you listening?” Walter asked.

James nodded. “Irony,” he said, scribbling the letters in the crossword boxes.

He heard Walter shrug from the other side of the phone. “I guess so. Will you be here in a couple hours? I don’t have much time. I’m serious.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll be there.” He flicked his wrist to examine the steel watch that cooled his skin. He popped a cigarette in his mouth, chewed on it for a moment, and lit it; he puffed. “Do not worry your dainty little self, Walt.” James took a long drag on his cigarette and thought carefully to himself. Perhaps there was a tone -- desperation? -- within his voice. It was calm and calculated, which was to say that Walter was not, in fact, tripping. Probably.

The door that awaited James at his destination was as blue as the ocean, just as Walt described, and pulled him from his ruminations. He sniffed, checked his watch, adjusted his watch. Still seated safely beneath James’ passenger seatbelt, the package awaited his direction. “What the hell?” James said, pulling on the door handle. He stood and rested his arm on the hood of the wagon, admired the glossy jet of its muscular body; the engine purred, and James was relieved the GPS -- having no source of power -- managed to remain alive during his trip. “What the hell?” he said again.

The door shut with a clap, and he took the long way around his car to the passenger side. He inhaled the oil fumes, relished the taste on his tongue and scent in his nostrils. The sun bathed his neck; it was a good day to race. He glanced at his watch again and cursed. It was nearly Walt’s allocated time. Steel burned flesh as he opened the passenger door, snapped free the package, and slammed the door shut. No time to waste, he thought, allegedly.

The specificity of Walter’s list of requests -- or, James thought, demands -- certainly baffled his friend. He tucked the package beneath his left arm and approached the door. Of course, the list, scribbled on the back of a gas station receipt with the penmanship of a tenured physician, would baffle any person in his/her right mind; Walter, James hypothesized, must have lost it sometime during the week. A normal Thursday found the two men together, rolling and drinking in the comfort of each other’s basements, the scents of liquor and the grays of smoke lingering around their personas.

Two raps of his knuckles against the frame of the tall, blue entryway left James standing in silence on the front porch of a house that belonged to people who would indubitably find him insane. Moments passed, and James grew uneasy. He examined the door frame, locating the bell and pushing its dimly lit ivory button. Yet more time crawled by, ticking away the seconds and minutes of the day. James glanced at his watch, watching the second hand tick-tick-ticking in rhythmic procession in its perpetual loop. The allotted time came, suddenly, the way car accidents unfold, and the door to the house swung open.

A man, with teeth as white as his skin and eyes as blue as his door, answered with a frown. “Can I help you?” he asked.

James nodded and held out the package. “Here. I have this for you. It was the dying wish of Walter Williams. Maybe you know him? He asked that I hand this to you.”

The man crinkled his eyes, creasing his forehead. He took the box and shook it, listening carefully for what was inside. “Thanks,” he said. “Good day.”

Without as much as a nod, James spun around and walked his way back to the throttling wagon. He pried open the driver side door and sat down, clutching a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it before sliding the car into reverse. As he rumbled to a halt at the edge of the drive, James looked once more up at the house and the sterling white man who lived there. A woman -- his wife, perhaps? -- with the soft swell of a protruding belly, appeared next to him, spoke softly in his ear, and eyed James with suspicion. The man shrugged, stepped off the porch, took two steps to the side of the house, and tossed the package straight into the city garbage container.

“Well, shit,” James said.