You are a delivery driver. Do you have a name? Sure. Does your boss know it? Absolutely fucking not. To your company you are an employee ID number, a slot on a time sheet, and they pay you accordingly. You’re struggling to make ends meet while you deliver high end gifts to wealthy neighborhoods. It would be poignant if you had the time and energy to think about it.
You don’t think about what’s in every box. Labels might as well be in dead languages with how little you pay attention to them. If you take more than two and a half minutes per delivery (not including the carefully calculated driving time between destinations) you will get an immediate text message on your corporate phone from your supervisor. Yeah. The company pays someone to sit on their ass and watch your every movement just to be sure you don’t take ten seconds to adjust your pants on the way to the delivery.
Just outside of a suburb you nearly ran over a stray cat crossing the street in front of you, slamming on your brakes to avoid flattening it. You heard the packages behind you shift and fall and swore quietly under your breath as your phone buzzed.
“SAFE DRIVING IS INTEGRAL TO OUR COMPANY VALUES, IF FURTHER OCCURRENCES ARE DOCUMENTED YOU WILL BE WRITTEN UP.”
Yeah. Within seconds. No “Good job not flattening someone’s beloved pet on Christmas Eve.” No “Are you okay?”. Fucking desk jockies.
You continued on, stopping at your next address. The package in question had a larger box that had settled on top, a much heavier one, and had flattened the side. No biggie, you were used to the sort of tricks of the trade and used one of the small holes on the side of the box to pop the flattened cardboard back into shape. No visible harm on the outside of the package, not your fault.
You dropped the package at the front door, knocked once, and jogged back to your truck. One box of hundreds to deliver tonight, your mind was already on your next delivery.
“Aw, Mom, you really didn’t have to!!” You held your cell phone with your shoulder as you peeled the tape off the box.
“Well, I couldn’t have my grandson thinking Santa forgot him!”
“He’s going to be so excited. I gave him a whole talk about how we don’t always get what we want for Christmas and that Santa tries his best, but there was just such a weird fluffy shortage this year!”
“I know! Could you believe that I was out walking the streets looking for a feral, of all things!”
The tape peeled off the top tab of the box, revealing a deep red pegasus foal laying on an absorbent pad. “Oh, a pegasus! He’s going to be so happy-”
“A pegasus?!” Your mother screeched into the phone, causing you to jump and nearly drop it. “Those bastards, I paid extra for an alicorn!!”
“Mom, it’s fine-”
“It most certainly is not! I’ll have to call you back, I need to give them a piece of my mind! Trying to take advantage of an old woman on Christmas! Sinful!!”
The line went dead and you sighed, stroking the foal on its tiny head. “Don’t worry, little guy. He’s gonna love you.”
Your finger brushed across something hard on the foal’s forehead and it chirped loudly. A small red bump rested squarely in the middle of its forehead, far too small to be a horn but slightly pointed like one. It lifted its head and blinked at you, one crossed eye at a time.
“Wha’ blabbeh?” It mumbled, looking off into the middle distance.
