The Worst Gifts Always Find You

The third package is acknowledged off a street corner in Taipei.

Neither the first nor the second packages are given much acknowledgement at all. The first appeared somewhere in Cincinnati but was promptly consumed by a particularly famished street sweeper. The second was deposited deep in the Cambodian jungle and to this day remains exactly where it was left.

The third package is found by Li-Hua [REDACTED] on the third day of Chinese New Year. Miss Li-Hua did not consider herself to be particularly adept at finding things but on this day, she had found the package. Wholly unremarkable at first glance, the package is wrapped in brown butcher’s paper and snugly tied off with common twine. Perfect triangle creases on its sides and roughly the size of a shoe box, it could have been a package meant for delivery had it not been submerged in a puddle. No address adorned its surfaces and, strangely enough to Miss Li-Hua, it hadn’t become wet in the coffee-colored water it had been drowning in. Miss Li-Hua thought about how sad she would be to miss her own package if it had fallen from the delivery-man’s bike into a dirty puddle. She grabs it from the water and notices no drops roll off the crisp paper. She turns it over and over in her hands to find its wayward owner.

Now, Miss Li-Hua knew she wasn’t one to pry into anyone’s mail that wasn’t her own, but there truly isn’t another way to find out what this package was all about, is there? Brief images of bombs and poison in envelopes flash through her mind before she unties the string. If anyone rigged a bomb, she thinks, there were better spots to leave it than the alley beside a 7-Eleven. She unwraps the paper and gingerly lifts the box lid to peer at its contents.

~

Li-Hua [REDACTED], as spoken of by friends on the evening news several days later, had not been a fame-seeker. In fact, she was practically allergic to being made the center of attention. The spectacle surrounding how they found her would surely have made her tense, they said, and she would have liked to have been kept off the news entirely had it been her decision. Unfortunately, Miss Li-Hua could not do much of anything anymore due to her current condition. The police officially consider her to be a missing case, but they were not wholly convinced she was still alive. The cameras outside the convenience store had captured her movements right up to when she picked up the package but had tracked away by the time, she had even opened it.

Not much more than a purse with a handful of cash and an ancient tube of cherry-scented lip gloss inside were found at the scene. A brown box perfectly tied up lay in a puddle of brown murky water nearby. Upon unwrapping the box and examining the contents, only a mason jar of some indeterminate jelly lay inside, snugly packed in shredded white and black paper. A cursory sniff of the jar gave an aroma of blueberry and pennies. Upon testing, the jam was determined to be a mixture of blueberry preserves and human remains. DNA testing compared with Li-Hua’s only living relative, her aunt, proved a match.

~

In between bouts of crying and fielding calls from Li-Hua’s stricken friends, her aunt remembers back to the last gift Li-Hua had given to her for her birthday. They’d grown apart in recent years, really, and Ms. [REDACTED] hadn’t expected much, but she was disappointed when she pulled the tissue paper from the brightly colored bag. Li-Hua was one of the few who knew how terrible her blueberry allergy was, and yet here was a testament to how far apart they really had grown. She did not call Li-Hua again after the gift. Now, she wish she had.

~

The fourth package is much like the third and second and first, brown paper and plain twine. It ends up on a beach in Brisbane only moments after the previous several had been deposited.

The crisp blue water laps against the side, gingerly shifting it back and forth across the sand as the tide rolls. Harvey A. [REDACTED] spots it from fifty feet away, the plastic coconut bearing his pina colada cradled in his hands.

“What do you think’s in that box, babe?”, he mutters to his wife. She is face down in a polka-dotted beach towel accumulating melanoma and does not respond. Mr. Harvey sighs. So much for bonding on vacation.

“Hey Tommy, could you bring daddy that package over there,” he shouts to his son, currently entranced with stabbing a jellyfish corpse with a stick, “grab it before it floats away, could you?”

Thomas [REDACTED] stabbed his jellyfish one final time before complying with Harvey. He scoops the box out of the water, surprised to feel how light it is. It doesn’t even drip as he walks back to his father with it.

“Here,” he chucks the box at Harvey and runs back to the jellyfish carcass, crouching in the sand with a sharper stick.

“We have to get that kid medicated, Maria,” Mr. Harvey says quietly to his wife. She does not respond.

Mr. Harvey sits up on his towel and wipes the sweat from his brow, readjusting the Rolex on his wrist. The tan line is horrible, but it lets the beach bartender know his tab should remain open past the limit. He grabs the package by the twine and adjusts it between his knees. Pulling the twine loose and ripping the paper off, he lifts the plain box near his ear and shakes. It sounds almost like cloth if not for a heavier object rattling in between shakes. He sets it back on the towel and lifts the lid.

~

Mrs. Maria [REDACTED], when questioned by police, is hysterical. How could he just up and disappear, she cries, how can you pigs not know where he is? What they don’t know is Mrs. Maria is crying about the pre-nuptials she signed some three years earlier. No pay-out in any case where foul-play towards Harvey is suspected. Unfortunately for Mrs. Maria, she is suspect number one. An otherwise empty section of beach, her son turned away from them both, and a missing husband? Not a good look.

The police find the package snugly wrapped with twine innocently sitting on Mr. Harvey’s towel. His sandals were found tucked underneath, his prized Rolex relaxing in the sand. When they open the box, inside is a name-brand set of lingerie in ‘succubus red’, the size a perfect match to Mrs. Maria. A sickly copper smell wafted off the fabric. Nestled in the fabric is another Rolex, just small enough to fit a child’s wrist. When asked about the package, Mrs. Maria cannot explain its contents. Mr. Harvey is filed as a missing person for several weeks until testing on the lingerie and watch come back.

The dye of the fabric is a match for blood. Upon further testing, it bears genetic similarity to Thomas [REDACTED]. Mrs. Maria is indefinitely held in Brisbane custody while the case is ongoing. During another round of testing, the face of the watch is found to have a small square of off-white material. After removal, the material is found to be a human tooth. Same as the dye, it matches Thomas [REDACTED].

~

While Thomas remains in custody waiting for his mother to fly in from Suriname, Mrs. Maria cries most nights in her cell. She beats the walls with her fists, shakes the metal bars and screams expletives at the guard on duty at the end of the hall. She curses the name of Harvey [REDACTED], she curses his filthy money and the way he up and left them. This was his way of telling her he knew about Benjamin, she knew it, it was nothing but a cruel joke to get her back in place. She wailed and wailed and thought about their first anniversary together. In all her purchasing power, she had gotten Harvey a beautiful set of antique cufflinks, a wonderful addition to his growing collection. He had been so touched that when she had opened her own gift, she hadn’t shown her rage. The thing had hung from her hands limp like roadkill, its ghastly red color making her spray-tan appear a vivid orange. She hoped she didn’t look quite like a terror when she curled her teeth back in a smile. How she fucking hated it.

~

When Thomas finally got to his father’s house with his mother, she told him to pack lightly. He threw books and games and toys in his suitcase, squeezing a few items of clothing in before zipping it shut. He surveys his room in his father’s house, a room filled with things, and thinks about how he’s probably never coming back here again if what the Brisbane police say is true. He pauses before leaving his room and fishes through his nightstand drawers, extracting his most recent Christmas gift. Harvey was convinced he’d love it just like he did, but in all honesty, Thomas had never even worn it. It ticked and ticked and lay in a mix of pencils and dirt where it belonged. A metal reminder of all his father’s love. He shut the drawer and shut off the light, shutting the door gently behind him.

~

The fifth and sixth packages end up in the hands of the homeless, both without a dollar to their names. Mere moments and over 7,600 kilometers apart, the two happen upon the packages in all their brown papered glory. Kurt [REDACTED] in Calgary watches it with suspicious eyes, this package sitting on the side of the street with nobody around. Leonor [REDACTED] in Lisbon immediately swoops it off the table it lays on, sliding it into her canvas tote as she heads around the corner to open it.

Mr. Kurt eventually picks it up, turning it over in his hands while cars fly by. He scratches his beard before undoing the twine slowly. After removing the paper, he gently lifts the lid of the box open. Kurt is disappointed to find it empty, a simple cardboard box wrapped so nicely with nothing to show for it. He discards the wrappings in the trash before he extracts a decaying shoebox from his backpack. He gingerly shakes all his things inside the new box, all his marbles and coins and crumpled papers into a fresh place. He shuts the lid and slides it into his backpack and starts his trek again.

Ms. Leonor doubles back around the square twice more looking for other things left behind. She manages a wallet and two phones but decides against lurking in case someone is watching. She makes it twelve blocks before she ducks into an alley and pulls out the package. Crouching against the brick, she shakes it and feels the weight of it. Whatever it is, it makes a sloshing sound. She shucks the paper and twine quickly before tearing open the lid.

~

When Leonor’s friends go looking for her after the sixth day she doesn’t come home, they don’t find much. Remy [REDACTED] manages to find her bag on the second day of looking with a few wallets and several phones tucked inside. The package nearby he opens and glances inside. Nothing but a half-empty bottle of cheap wine. He tucks it in her bag and heads back to the group. When he hands the bag off to Leonor’s daughter, Margarida, she remarks the wine is the same brand her mother gave her on her sixth birthday. Some habits die hard, she says, maybe that’s what got her this time. When she tastes the wine, she thinks it tastes like copper. She finishes it off with a gag. Some taste her mother had!