This is the first "Around the Bonfire" tale.

"Around the Bonfire" is an online community for collaborative ventures in storytelling. Where this story goes from here is up to you! Visit the link below for more information, and/or to contribute.

In keeping with the site's guidelines, I will not be broadcasting further installments of this story on AuthorsDen. They will be available on the "Around the Bonfire" site, however.

Special Delivery

It was a fine spring day, the kind you don't get very often - bathed in golden light, the world rested its arms back behind its head, stretched, yawned, and soaked itself in a tub of well-being for the day. Children who ordinarily leered and screeched at each other called a truce and formed temporary alliances, roaming the city in packs of bikes and boards, happily telling each other to go to hell and not meaning it for once.

Incongruous with the tenor of the day, a rumpled man in a rumpled brown uniform (representing, what he and his cohorts called, "The Big Brown Lie") struggled up the street with an awkward package. The package was difficult to bear not so much because it was heavy, but because the consequences of the Sup's wrath if anything were to happen to the package would be unbearable. The rumpled brown uniform knew that if the package itself got rumpled during its journey, he'd be looking for another uniform to make ends meet.

The rumple heaved the awkward package into its resting place in the house at the far end of the street.  He shrugged through the pleasantries that the house's tidy recipient foisted upon him and beat a hasty retreat back to the welcome cool of his big brown cab. The recipient struggled with the package, not because it was heavy, but because she saw the return address and had to debate whether or not to throw it out the window. She looked for an attached letter, and she scanned it for signs that the contents might detonate. She listened for ticking noises. Nothing suggested a course of action. Finally, sighing with bravery, she carefully cut the binding cord, carefully pulled the brown paper away, carefully unwound the bubble paper… and then she fell, a little less than carefully, on the floor, as if the package had been a bomb after all.

"Holy Mother of God!"

Who is this woman, and why doesn't she want to hear from whoever sent her the package? What's in the special delivery? Does the UPS man play a bigger role in the story? It's up to you!

To join in, just visit http://bonfyre.wordpress.com and submit your installment. Each new installment will be added as a full post in order of submission. Check back in to see where the story goes from here!