Boxes At The Doorstep

By Mario Fraioli

A faint knock on the door echoes through the empty apartment on an uneventful Wednesday afternoon. No response. After waiting idly for half a minute or so, the mailman makes one more attempt, again to no avail. Nobody’s home. He pulls the stylus out from the side of his portable electronic tracker, pokes the screen a few times and drops the rectangular box at the doorstep.

“Another one,” the mailman thinks to himself as he descends the same stairwell for the third time in less than a week. “He must have a hundred of these by now.”