Delivery

Written by Anakin McFly

That evening, the sky was a beautiful pale blue, flecked here and there with bits of cloud. The setting sun shone gently onto the house of Michelle and John Anderson, having a homecooked dinner somewher in the warmly-lit kitchen. Outside, the sounds of children playing on the street came faintly through the closed window, the shrill cry of a bicycle bell cutting occasionally through the youthful laughter.

Michelle cast a wistful look out the window at them. She and John had been married for a year, but were still childless. They had tried... but all to no avail, it seemed. Every day, they still waited. And waited.

The clock on the wall ticked quietly on in the background, minding its own business the way it had for several years, some in this house and some in John's old one.

John poked absent-mindedly at a chunk of potato, vaguely marvelling its remarkable resemblance to Elvis Presleys' face when you looked at it from a certain angle. The usual conversation went on between the couple; nothing out of the ordinary, just the same old things they always talked about during dinner time.

Outside, a small moving speck was gradually growing larger in the sky as it headed towards the house. It was a bird – a stork, in fact, and a large one at that, a basket clamped firmly by its feet as it flew. It alighted at the doorsetp of the Anderson's house, gently placed the basket down, then pecked at the doorbell to ring it before flying off again.

In the house, John and Michelle looked up, not daring to hope.

In the basket, something stirred.

The stork flew back, picking up unnatural speed that soon had it flying over the ocean and then vanishing with a flash of green code into a hidden area hovering above the ocean. It was a vast platform, delivery storks flying all over it, and on the platform itself every now and then a basket would materialise, each carrying in it a newborn baby, freshly plugged into the Matrix.

Back at the Anderson home, Michelle let out a small gasp of joy as she and John opened the door to see the delivery.

In the basket, the baby boy slept, thumb in his mouth and wisps of dark hair covering his head in a suspiciously Harry Potter way.

"Thomas," Michelle whispered. "His name is Thomas."

And Thomas Anderson slept, not knowing that he was The One, not knowing that one day he would be famous, and not knowing that one day he would save the world.

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