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It is a sunny morning in Greendale. Hank wakes up to the shrill ring of his alarm clock; which, in fact, is Connor, his android assistant, calling from the other room to let him know that breakfast is ready.
“Good morning, Hank!” he greeted, “I’ve made your breakfast.”
Hank stared in dismay at the burnt toast on his plate but began to eat it anyway.
“Today, we have another special delivery to—”
“Of course we do, we’re postmen. What else would we be doing?”
“To deliver,” Connor continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “so, we need to get going soon to deliver it!”
So, Hank had to rush his burnt breakfast and get into his non-brand-associated red van to make it to Mrs Goggins’ shop where he picked up the parcels from.
“Good morning, Hank!” she greeted with a cheery tone. “And hello, Connor.”
“Hello, Mrs Goggins.” Connor smiled and hopped onto the counter, legs dangling over the edge. “I heard we had a parcel to collect.”
“Yes, you do. Here, it’s for Ted Glenn,” she held out a spade-shaped parcel towards Hank, “I wonder what it could be! It’s a complete mystery.”
Hank turned to stare at some unknown source with a look of utter devastation in his eyes. Connor, meanwhile, scanned the parcel with the x-ray lasers installed in his eyes and announced that it was a spade.
“Ooh, technology these days really is fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, the wonders of modern technology…” Hank grumbled, turning to leave the shop. “Come on, Connor.”
They got back into the red van and made their way towards the destination. However, it wasn’t long before hurdle struck them- PC Selby had arranged a temporary road barricade to stop them.
“Hank! Hank, I’ve got to stop you right there, now hold on…”
“God.” Hank groaned. “What?”
“Hello, PC Selby.” Connor greeted.
“Yeah. Right,” Selby continued, “so, there’s a really important issue that we need your upmost assistance with, Hank.”
“Is it deliverin’ the post? That’s what I was doing.”
“Of course not!” Selby sounded offended. “Now why on earth would I ask you to do that? No, there’s an important task you need to complete, so you need to forget about that red van of yours and the parcels in it…
“Look right here, what’s all this then?” He held up a photograph; it was a photo of a mother chicken and her family of chicks.
“I believe that’s a chicken family, officer.” Connor replied readily.
“Correct! And, and… they’ve all gone missing. Escaped from Alf Thompson’s farm.”
“The **** has that gotta do with me?” Hank asked.
“Glad you asked.” Selby nodded and handed him the photo. “You’ve got to go and search for them, Hank.”
“Why the **** do I gotta find them? I’m a ******* postman, not a duck herder.”
Selby shifted awkwardly on his feet. “Right… well, glad you can help, Hank. Go right this way.” He began to move away the road barrier.
“They’re chicks, by the way.” Connor added.
“What?”
“Chicks. Chicks are the offspring of chickens, not ducks, since you said about being a duck herder.”
Hank stared at him and raised his hand in what appeared to be a rude gesture, except whatever finger he had raised was immediately blurred out. He then began to drive again once the barrier was gone.
“Which way do we go first to look for the chicks?” Connor asked.
“The **** do you mean? We’re not looking for chicks, we’re delivering the post.”
“But Hank, the chicks are all alone out there—”
“And I don’t care. Connor, don’t you think it’s strange how, every time we go to deliver the post, somebody finds another task for us to do? People hardly get their post delivered around here and I usually spend most of my days doing unpaid overtime.”
Connor shrugged, LED spinning yellow. “The chicks, Hank. They—wait, look! Footprints!” He pointed to a nearby field.
Hank groaned. “What? Tiny chick footprints? Can you see them with, what, magnifying glasses in your eyes or something?”
“Yes.” Connor replied, seriously. “Now, we have to go that way. The chicks were over there recently.”
This was commonplace at this point and Hank had no will left to fight against his inevitable fate, so he did as his android assistant said and drove off road.
“We really should’ve got some off-road tires for this thing,” he commented as they bounced along the field, being flung into the air at times as they drove over stones, “also, I hope we don’t run the chicks over.”
“That would never happen, Hank. This is a PG-13.”
Hank shrugged. “You never—”
“Over there!” Connor suddenly yelled, and Hank screamed at the sudden shock, losing control of the van. It slid comically on the mud until it rolled down a hill and got stuck in a ditch.
“***** ******* *****!” Hank swore, checking to see if Connor was okay. But the seat beside him was empty.
He waited a few moments, coming to terms with the fact that his android assistant had been flung out of the van at the high-speed crash they had experienced and would never be seen again, when the door opened. Connor came in, carrying an armful of chicks.
“Hello, Hank. I got the chicks!”
“I thought you—I thought you—”
“Mission accomplished!” Connor announced with a smile. He tilted his head as he heard sirens in the distance. “Here comes PC Selby and Ted to tow us out of the ditch!”
Sure enough, the others arrived, and once they were towed out of the ditch, Ted asked Hank about his parcel.
“Say, er, did you get my… parcel?”
“Yeah. I mean, I almost died but here’s your spade.” Hank handed him the parcel, slightly bashed from the collision.
“Thanks, Hank! Aw, my new spade. I was gunna make the chicks a little swimmin’ pool, now that’d be nice.”
Hank looked back at some indistinguishable place, still panting, eyes somewhere far away. A black vignette drew around the screen, until it faded away.