Prompt: From the back of a truck...

...it fell then bounced a few times before it came to rest on the gravel shoulder. What was it, you ask? I will tell you in good time, in good time. The sky that day was a marvelous cerulean, wouldn't you know. Of course a stray cloud now and again would scud its way to the horizon when you weren't paying too much attention. It would be years before anyone would even notice the contrails, let alone speculate on their true meaning, I'll let you know. Yes, it was a simpler time, much simpler. It was so simple, no one would object if you just rocked an afternoon away on your porch And whether or not you had a book in your hand or an iced drink made no difference atall to the casual passerby. And that's exactly what old Abernathy was doing that glorious afternoon, except he had both the book and the iced drink and he was rocking away when it fell. I wish I knew what he was reading that kept him so entranced that at first he didn't notice the bundle that had bounced almost to his very doorstep. Well, alright, it was a few yards, give or take away, but houses back then were further apart. Nowadays you can practically ring your neighbor's bell from your own kitchen window while you're doing your washing. But in those days it just wasn't so. And old Abernathy kept rocking and reading, putting his glass down on the rickety wicker table, careful to place it on the same ring without even looking over to see. It must've been some book because even when the squawking started, he didn't look up. I think he might've raised an eyebrow, maybe his left, then his right and then turned another page. If you ever looked closely at his forehead, you could see how the furrows neatly divided, just over his brows, the left one a little more prominent, more deeply grooved. I believe this showed how he was more amused at life than anything. Anyway, that was his first reaction to the package that would change the rest of his years on this Earth.