The Delivery

Written for Muse On Monday. Our host,
David, asks us to write a story about
 getting a package we didn’t order.

The box sat on my porch like it belonged there …. brown, unremarkable, addressed to me in handwriting I didn’t recognize. No return address. No note taped to the top warning me what I’d find inside.

I almost called the shipping company right then. Almost. But curiosity is a stronger pull than responsibility, so I carried it inside and set it on the kitchen table instead.

The packing tape peeled back easy, like it wanted to be opened. Inside: tissue paper, and beneath that, a wooden box with brass hinges. Inside the box, a compass. Old, heavy, the kind that belonged to someone who actually used it …. not a decoration bought for a shelf. Engraved on the bottom: For J., so you always find your way back.

My name starts with a J. Funny how that happens.

I turned it over in my hands for a long time. It felt like it mattered to someone. Like it was meant for a specific J, on a specific journey, and I was just a wrong turn in the delivery system.

I could keep it. No one would ever know. But I kept picturing someone, somewhere, checking their front porch for a delivery that would never come, wondering if the person who sent it had changed their mind.

I found the tracking label, buried in the tissue paper. A phone number, half-smudged, but legible.

I dialed it before I could talk myself out of it.

“Hello,” I said. “I think I have something of yours.”

NAR©2026

This is “The Package” by A Perfect Circle

Muse on Monday – July 6, 2026

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}