I woke up to the sound of doorbell being abused.

Ding dong~

The two-note ring was echoing all around the house, making my head want to self-destruct. I stumbled off the bed, put on a coat and almost rolled down the stairs as I made a mad dash for the door.

“Miss Lee Mi Ra?” A man outside the gate asked when he saw me.

I hastily combed my hair with my fingers, trying to look more like a capable adult and less like a frazzled teenager, but it was a lost cause. I gave up trying to look presentable and opened the gate.

“Yes, hello. What is it?”

“We have a package—er...packages for you.” His uniform bore the tag of a delivery company. He held a clipboard out to me. “Please sign here.”

I took it and signed my name. Was it from my dad again? Probably. He always sent strange things to me. Pottery, ceramics and furniture. Once, he even tried to send a replica of a mummy, but I think the delivery company refused to ship a dead body to Korea. Even though it was only a replica.

“Are they from my dad, Lee Jong Min?”

The delivery man shook his head. “We don’t know Ma’am. There was no return address indicated. Would you like us to carry the packages in for you?”

“Uh, no, thanks. I can do it by myself.”

The man looked at me from head to toe. “You sure? They’re quite heavy.”

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Suit yourself,” the man said, then gestured to the other guys to bring out whatever it was that was sent to me. My mouth gaped. The “packages” were huge. Huge, huge rectangular boxes six or seven feet in height. It took several people to unload each box from the truck. I closed my mouth with a snap.

I cleared my throat. “You know,” I casually told the man beside me. “I think I pulled a muscle while doing all that cleaning yesterday. Would you mind bringing in the boxes for me after all?”

“Sure,” he answered, smiling a little. He told the guys to movie the boxes to the house, and by the time they were done, everyone looked tired. I kind of wished I could offer them something for all their trouble, but they said they had to get going.

I went back to the house to inspect my packages. I wondered where they came from. The delivery guy said there was no return address. My parents, so far as I knew were both only children. My grandparents from both sides were all dead. I had no one except my dad, so that definitely answered whether a relative had sent it to me. A rumbling in my stomach told me I hadn’t eaten yet, so I fixed myself some food, and went through my usual morning routines, trying to ignore the boxes in my living room.

By afternoon, though, I knew I couldn’t pretend they weren’t there. The fact that all five giant boxes took up most of my living room space made it hard to ignore. I plunked down beside the first box with a mini-crowbar in hand. They were really weird boxes. They were too colorful, for one thing, and they looked more like toy boxes than anything else. The first one, the one beside me was yellow with little foxes painted all over it. The next was orange, with little ducks on it, the third was green and designed with squirrels, the fourth was blue, painted with bears, and the last was pink, with puppies all over it.

Five boxes that I had no idea what…

Wait. Five boxes. My mind flashed back to yesterday, when that strange man practically tricked me into playing-and winning- a roulette game. He said I would be getting the prizes today. Five gifts.  Five boxes. Could it be? I tried to remember everything else that happened. I mentally slapped myself for not listening to that weird guy. If I did, then I wouldn’t be so baffled by the contents of the mysterious boxes. What was it that he said?

Something about robots. And house chores.

I felt as though a light bulb lit up in my head. Right! House helper robots! But…

When that guy mentioned robot, I was thinking of something like R2-D2. You know, that cute little robot from Star Wars. How cute would it be, having little R2-D2s zooming around the house? But these—whatever they were— were taller than me. Images of cute little R2-D2 were blown away like dust, replaced with seven foot-tall mechanical monsters. Not a pretty sight. And what was with the designs? Foxes, ducks, bears, squirrels and puppies?

Oh…maybe that’s what the robots were modeled after, maybe that’s what they look like. A fox robot, a duck robot and so on. That would have been cute too, if not for the size. But, six or seven feet?  Seriously? What, do they somehow combine and fight giant aliens on their spare time?

Well, I won’t find out if I just kept on guessing and staring. I put my crowbar to use, and started opening the first box. It was made of thick wood with nails all around, so it took me a couple of hours to open it. Finally I got it done. By that time I was sweating again, breathing heavily but excited as well. I slid the cover off to the side and peeked right in. What I saw inside was neither a cute little R2-D2 or even a giant mechanical fox. All the strength ran out of my legs and I sank to the floor, breathing a million times a minute.

“Oh my God, it’s a dead body!”