But still, something was off.

I snuck a peek at the envelopes, but the duck turned so the addresses faced away from me. Okay, concern for customer privacy was a good sign, but I lived there too, dammit. I was a resident. Where did this interloper get off, implying I was up to no good?

And why was it—or he, seeing as how it was a drake—in the elevator anyway, I thought. Lazy-ass bird could have flown up to the window. But then I considered that if the people weren't home, there'd be nowhere to leave the packages, since our building didn't have balconies. Well, some units had those lame little "Juliet balconies" (that's what had tricked me into looking at this building in the first place, advertised with "balconies," and turned out I couldn't even afford one of those, not even with overtime), and the envelope would have slipped right through the "balcony" railing, so, okay, the duck had a good reason to be in the elevator.

But still. He looked shady.

Maybe it was because of the other drakes I'd seen around the lake, hassling the ducklings, pestering the female ducks for sex. I know, not all drakes. But this one looked just like the jerk I'd seen chasing a female duck earlier that week, flying after her, landing where she landed, then taking off after her as soon as she tried to fly away from him. I wanted to throw a rock at him.

Okay, I did, I threw a rock at him. Solidarity, motherfucker.

I examined the duck in the elevator to see if he had a bump on his head. Nothing. So it wasn't the same drake. In fact, this one seemed to be hard at work, making a living while his degenerate cousin was out at the lake terrorizing the females and ducklings. Asshole. The philandering cousin, I mean, not this hardworking duck just trying to make a living.

The elevator stopped at the floor below mine and the doors opened. As the duck stepped out and began to waddle down the hall, I couldn't help but angle myself to keep an eye on him. Then it happened: one of the envelopes slipped out of his bill. He slumped wearily, and I could envision his coming struggle: reaching down to pick up one envelope, dropping the other, scrabbling after both, screwing over his productivity metrics in the process. There was something familiar in that bird's resigned posture...

I straightened my shoulders. According to social media, people my age were supposed to be gearing up for a night on the town at this point on a Friday evening. But me and my friends, IRL? We were tired. We were all just. So. Tired.

The elevator doors began to close. In my apartment one floor above, a frozen burrito and the newest episode of Murderbot beckoned. But something drove my arm up to keep the doors open. I stepped out of the elevator and picked the fallen package up off the floor.

"302," I said, scanning the address label. "I got this."

The duck turned and eyed me up and down. Slowly. He looked down again at the fallen package, then back up at me. Assessing.

Finally, he lifted his head in a quick bro nod, a quack that I chose to read as "thanks" muffled behind the other package in his bill.

Physically, we headed in opposite directions down the hall, yet we were united. Workers of the world, and all that. A virtuous warmth rose in my chest as I left the blue and white envelope on the welcome mat.