The Spectacle in the Driveway

A military sized drone hovered like a giant yellowjacket that Saturday morning. The Newark, Delaware neighborhood of large homes and plush landscaping permitted the flying machine to safely enter the air space and carefully drop the giant package.

It was a wooden crate that read “fragile” in red stencil in six places: the top, sides, and bottom. The whirring alerted the owner of the home from his chess game. Crozier “Crazy” Diggs, 39, about six feet, brown skinned with a high and tight fade haircut said, “what the hell?” It then quickly faded away as the huge flying apparatus took to the sky. He was dressed and ready to do some errands after the Web game so he exited his home anticipating the best.

“Good morning, Mr. Diggs. What’s that?”

“Good morning, Brandon. I have no idea, young man.”

Brandon was fourteen years old and lived across the street. More congregated. Chief among them were sixty-two-year-old Marla Coel, retired United States Air Force general with a five foot seven inch frame, brown hair and light brown eyes; Letitia Gadsen, forty-four, five-four, worked as a supermarket franchise owner with box braids and green eyes that looked like ocean water; and twenty-two-year-old tech startup CEO Danai Pill moved lithely with her flowing braids and cocoa buttered-colored skin and five six frame. They had been jogging, swapping stories.

They stopped mid jog to see the gigantic parcel placed on Diggs’ property.

“Hi, neighbor,” Marla called to Diggs, a United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. The other women waved.

“Good afternoon, ladies. You have more intel on this than I,” he smiled, putting on the charm with just a few syllables.

“I think it’s a spaceship recovered from a site down in Dover and they just needed a place to stash it to keep it away from that area,” Letitia speculated.

Marla chuckled. “Baby, it doesn’t work like that. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

She knew why. A fellow military officer himself, though still active, he grinned at Danai’s guess. He summoned the garage to open with the sound of his voice. He searched for a tool to break open the wooden planks.

“I think it’s probably a tiger cub. I think I see holes poked through it. It’s probably that,” Letitia floated her idea.

The two other women laughed. “That can’t possibly be it, girl. We would have heard it moving around in there, no?” Marla asked.

“It could be sedated?” Letitia shrugged.

“No, I know exactly what it is. I’ve seen too many pallets of goods come into my store not to recognize that it’s just a box full of produce. They meant to deliver that box to CoolMart. Probably my watermelons,” Danai added.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. They would’ve dropped it off at your store. I highly doubt that the level of sophistication behind that aircraft would've made such an error as egregious as that,” Marla explained.

While the three women quibbled, Diggs pried away at the box with ease. He found a release underneath and the rest of the planks fell simultaneously.

“Ooh, it’s wrapped in bubbles!” Letitia exclaimed.

“You’re observant!” Danai said wryly.

A few other neighbors now gathered around to see the commotion. Hector Herman, six foot, brown skinned and black hair and owner of a sporting goods store walked up to see his fellow neighbors ogling at the spectacle in the driveway.

“Hey, Crazy! What do you have there?”

“I’m just about to find out,” Diggs said. “Or should I say we’re about to find out, now,” he mentioned, noticing his audience beginning to swell. About thirty people all banded together to see the unveiling of the object.

“Here, let me get that…” Herman called.

The two men peeled off the remaining wrap to reveal a pristine grand piano. The sleek, black instrument looked like a gargantuan shiny pair of Corfams.

“I didn’t know it was coming to me but whoever sent it must know I know how to play!” Diggs projected. They just cheered. He grabbed a stool from his garage and sat at the keys. His audience of neighbors applauded as he started placing fingers over the ivory and ebony.

A tiny concert arose from the previously unknown and created a stir amongst the congregants.

“I told you it was a piano!” Letitia squealed.

“Girl, you said it was a spaceship, be quiet!” They both laughed. The notes lifted to the sky like the drone that dropped the box in the first place.