An attractive Asian woman kneels in the warm winter sun and tends to her neat, cottage style garden. As she ploughs gently at her marigolds and listens to the music pumping through her headphones a dark blue delivery van pulls up on the street running parallel to the front of the house. A tall, well set afro-American man steps out of the still running vehicle, and proceeds to open up the rear doors and pull out a small mountain of brown paper bags full of groceries. He walks across the neat, green lawn and up the path towards the house's front door, not noticing the young woman.
As he haphazardly tried to press the doorbell while still supporting the load he upends one of the bags and it tumbles to the ground. Oranges and kiwifruit roll off down the path and onto the lawn, one bumping gently into the otherwise oblivious lady. She turns to see what has collided with her leg and then notices the delivery man. Quickly she rips the earphones out of her ears and rushes over to the small porch to help the man pick up the spilled fruit and vegetables.
"Oh my – I'm so sorry, I didn't hear the van pull up!" she explained as they both pile the fruit back into the paper bag. She wiped a stray bead of sweat from her forehead.
"That is quite alright –" the black delivery man glanced down at a piece of paper he had just removed from his pocket, "That is quite alright Mrs Lambert". He smiled, his perfect white teeth gleaming as his masculine, heavily set jaw tilted slightly to the side.
The woman stared down at her hands, feeling herself go slightly pink, "it's Melody -miss Melody". The man continued to smile.
"Well it's nice to meet you miss Melody Lambert! I'm Nathan, your new 'Fresh Foods' delivery man", he winked cheekily, "but you can call me Nate."
Melody Lambert laughed as the two of them rose back to their feet simultaneously.
"Here let me help you with those" offered Nate the delivery guy warmly, removing two of the bags from the woman and placed one under each arm. She led him down a hallway and into the kitchen, where she signalled for him to put the bags on the table.
They both stood there, in complete silence smiling for a couple of seconds, Melody snapped out of her trace and laughed, "Where are my manners? Would you –", but she was cut short by a loud crash in the front of the house. They both rushed down the hallway, Nate tenderly stepping in front of Melody, placing her out of harms way. They turned a tight corner and arrived at the source of the noise – a cat had jumped through an open window and was about to pounce on a small yellow canary that had been knocked out of its cage by the impact of the cat landing on top of it.
Melody jumped towards the cat, yelling at the tabby creature and flailing her arms about.
"GO ON – GET OUT YOU ROTTEN ANIMAL! SHOO!" she shrieked, slamming the window shut behind it. Meanwhile Nate had stood the large bird cage back up and was trying to catch the canary. They both laughed as they stupidly stumbled around the lounge room, attempting to catch the bird, eventually Nate pulled his best Michael Jordan move and pounced on the bird, his broad hands closing around it and ripping it from the air mid-flight.
"Whoa!" said Melody, half laughing, half puffing. "Those are some good moves!" she smiled as they walked back along the corridor to the kitchen.
"Thankyou miss Melody!" said Nate in a mock suave voice, "you know – I was the captain of the basketball team."
"Impressive, impressive" laughed Melody as she smiled at the charming delivery man. "Can I get you anything? Water, tea, coffee?" She held up one of the oranges, "orange juice?". Nate returned the warm smile, "Water would be just fine thanks." Melody brushed a strand of her glossy black hair out of her eyes as she momentary turned away to pour Nate a glass of water. Little more than 15 seconds had passed when she turned back around to face Nate.
Much to her surprise he was no longer the warm, smiling man he had been when she turned her back on him. Without an ounce of expression, his face looked cold and hard – there was an evil glint in his eye. The air was steadily growing colder and colder.
"Nate, what's wrong?" she laughed uncomfortably, he did not speak. Her free hand closed around the kitchen knife resting beside the sink. Still he didn't say anything; he just stood there completely motionless. It seemed like an eternity of him just standing there to Melody, all the while she was seizing up inside, desperately trying to think of a way out of this situation. She was about to open her mouth to speak when he suddenly rushed forwards towards her. She screamed and the glass of water fell to the floor, smashing into a thousand and one pieces.