I ordered a replacement phone charger because my old phone charger had started making a small
whining sound at night. During the day I couldn’t hear it, or I couldn’t tell if I could hear it,
because there were other noises, like traffic and the refrigerator and my own blood or whatever.
But at night the whining sound was extremely clear. It sounded like the charger was secretly
charging something much larger than my phone, like the entire city. I unplugged it and put it in a
kitchen drawer under some batteries and chopsticks and old takeout menus. I ordered a new
charger. The next morning, the tracker marked the status of my cargo as Delivered. I opened my
front door, but there was no package. I looked to the left of the door and to the right of the door
and behind the little potted plant that had been dead for months. Nothing. I refreshed the tracking
page. I read the note underneath the code that the package had been handed directly to a resident,
but it didn’t specify who. No one had handed me anything, that was for sure. I thought maybe the
delivery guy had handed it to some other resident by mistake, but there are only four units in the
building, and I know what all four residents look like, including myself.

I went downstairs and knocked on the door of the guy in Unit 1. He opened the door holding a
banana and looked at me like I had interrupted something important involving the banana. I
asked if a package had been delivered to him by mistake. He said no. I asked if anyone had
handed him anything. He said he received something for another neighbor only once, and it was
last year. It was a weird thing to say, but I was curious what it was he’d received, so I couldn’t help but ask. He said never mind. I went upstairs and knocked on the door of the woman in Unit
3. She opened the door very slowly and kept the chain on. I asked if a package had been
delivered to her by mistake. She asked what was in it. I said a phone charger. She asked if it was
a fast charger. I said I didn’t know. She said then how would I know if I had it. I didn’t get her
point but I said, That’s fair, I guess. I went to Unit 4 and no one answered, but I could hear a
television blaring from inside and also what sounded like someone vacuuming very slowly, the
decibel unchanging, like the person behind the door was vacuuming one specific square foot of
carpet over and over.

I went back to my apartment. I refreshed the tracking page again. The screen still showed that the
cargo had been directly handed to a resident. There was also a photo now. The photo showed a
hand holding a small cardboard package in front of a door that looked exactly like my door
except the welcome mat in the photo read HOME and my welcome mat says HI to whomever
passes by my unit. I stared at the photo for a while. I zoomed in on the hand. It looked like a
normal hand. I zoomed in on the door. I zoomed in on the package. I zoomed in on the doormat.
I thought maybe the delivery photo had been taken in some parallel version of my building
where a more sincere version of myself had bought a more sincere doormat. I called the delivery
company. A robot answered and asked what the issue was. I said it seems that my package had
been handed directly to a resident but no one had handed me anything, directly or otherwise. The
robot said it was sorry my package was damaged. I said no, not damaged. Just lost. The robot
said it would soon issue a refund for my damaged package. I repeated that the package wasn’t
damaged (probably), it was just missing. The robot asked if I wanted help returning an item. I
said I wanted help receiving an item.

The robot was quiet for a second and then asked if I’d like to speak with one of the human
representatives? I said yes, please. It put me on hold. The hold music was just a man switching
between contralto and mezzo-soprano at regular intervals over a faint drumbeat. It actually
sounded pretty good. While I was on hold, someone knocked on my door. I opened it and there
was a package on the doormat. It was my package. There was no one in the hallway. I looked
over the railing. I looked down the stairs. I opened the package. Inside was not a phone charger.
Inside was another smaller package with my name on it. I opened the smaller package. Inside
was an even smaller package with my name on it. I opened that one too. This kept happening for
a while. The packages got smaller and smaller. I sat on the floor opening them. Eventually I was
opening boxes the size of cough drops, then dice, then sugar cubes. In the smallest package there
was a folded piece of paper. I unfolded it very carefully. The writing on it was sloppy and it read
HI. I looked at my doormat. I looked at the note. I looked at the open door. I thought about the
guy downstairs with the banana. I thought about the woman who wanted to know if it was a fast
charger. I thought about the hand in the photo, holding the package in front of the wrong doormat. The voice on hold sang the verse so loud it sounded almost animal. I closed my front
door. I unplugged everything in the apartment. I sat on the floor in the dark with my now-dead
phone in my hand. I don’t know how long I sat there. A long time, probably. Long enough to feel
like I had been delivered somewhere else. That I’d been charged anew. 

Sarp Sozdinler is a writer from Philadelphia and Amsterdam. His stories and poems have been
published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Wigleaf, Maudlin House, and
Pithead Chapel, among other journals. His work has been selected or nominated for anthologies
including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction. He edits the literary
journal The Bulb Region.