Every morning, at exactly the same time, the retired man stepped onto the porch of his cottageand there, without fail, lay the same eerie offering: a fresh loaf of bread, neatly wrapped in cling film. The packaging bore a garish label from an unfamiliar bakery, the name foreign and unsettling, as if it belonged to another world entirely. From the first day, a cold suspicion prickled at the back of his neck.
At first, he assumed it was a neighbour’s kindnessperhaps someone had noticed his solitude and taken pity. The thought warmed him briefly, but he didnt touch the bread. Nothing in life was free, he knew that much.
The next morning, it happened again. The same loaf, the same wrapping, the same spot. This time, he wondered if it was some new council scheme for pensioners. But none of his neighbours had mentioned it, and no letter had arrived to explain.
By the third day, his nerves were frayed. The precision, the strangeness of itnone of it sat right. Clutching the loaf under his arm, he marched to the nearest corner shop. The shopkeeper, a sharp-eyed woman, frowned as he held it up.
You lot delivering bread now? Some sort of promotion?
She looked at him as if hed lost his mind. Whatre you on about, love? We sell bread, not hand it out for free.
His stomach twisted. Back home, he paced, his mind racing. What if it was poisoned? What if someone was watching him?
On the fourth morning, he took action. Digging out an old camcorder from the atticonce used for family Christmaseshe aimed it at the porch and waited.
At dawn, he rewound the footage. His breath caught. There, in the grainy pre-dawn light, a small drone glided soundlessly over his garden. It hovered, dropped the loaf with mechanical precision, and vanished into the dark.
His hands shook as he packed the camera and hurried to the police station. The officers exchanged glances when he showed them the recording. One smirked.
Blimey, mate. Youve been roped into an experiment.
Some flashy tech startup, they explained, was trialling drone deliveriesand his address had been randomly selected. Worse, hed somehow signed up for a trial subscription days earlier, clicking an ad while checking the weather on his phone. A mis-tap, a hidden tick-boxnow he was locked into a month of unwanted bread.
They refunded him, cancelled the subscription. But the fear lingered.
The loaves sat untouched on his kitchen counter. Too strange. Too sinister. Hed never trust a free loaf again.
