A "Prime" Adventure

I picked up my weekly box of jalapeno jars from my doorstep, but it was much lighter than usual. I rolled my eyes and groaned. Amazon probably messed up my order again. With a heavy sigh I dumped it on the kitchen table and tore open the box, dreading the long wait for customer service and having to fill out the complicated complaint form. Dinner would be delayed.

But inside was something I did not expect.

It was a single piece of parchment, singed around the edges, covered in smears and stains. It was a map of something, but I couldn't quite tell what. I slowly picked it up out of the box to examine it. All sorts of colors and names were printed all over, complete with dragons in the woods and serpents in the water, making it look like something from a medieval book.

My eyes scanned all over, trying to make heads or tails of anything, when they stopped right at the bottom. One of the place names nearly made me jump in the air.

It was "Verdant Village," the name of the apartment complex I lived in. Looking around from there, suddenly the locations on the map fell into place. The blackness around the apartment was the parking lot, the white strips were the highway, the blue blob was the nearby Laden Lake, and a bunch of gray boxes to the north was the shopping center. And in the center of the lake, marking one of the small islands, was a giant red X.

I chuckled to myself. This had to be some sort of prank. I looked around my apartment, expecting to see cameras filming me from the windows for some stupid practical joke YouTube channel. But there was nothing except darkness and silence.

With a quiet crinkle, I flipped the map around. On the back was a handwritten list of supplies. "Shovel," "compass," "metal detector," and then "RAFT???" Again, I snorted and looked around. This couldn't be real. Could it?

With the map in one hand, I sat down at my laptop and opened up Amazon. I clicked to the jalapenos that I'd purchased earlier today at work and scrolled down to items that customers also bought along with it.

When I saw what was there, my heart dropped into my stomach.

Shovels. Compasses. Metal detectors. And rafts.

I scrolled down to the reviews, which I'd never really paid much attention to before. There was only one. Five stars. And it read: "These jalapenos led me somewhere really spicy, if you know what I mean. I became a much richer person eating them."

I looked again at the map. Was it possible that it was real? Did I stumble upon some sort of hidden Easter egg that only a select few knew about? No... there was no way.

And yet, five minutes later, I had a shovel, compass, metal detector, and raft headed my way via Amazon Prime.

Thankfully I lived nearby an Amazon warehouse, so after pacing in the kitchen for only about two hours, my doorbell rang. I flung it open, grabbed the box from the bewildered delivery man, and threw it in my car.

Following the map, I drove to the edge of Laden Lake, parked, and ripped open the box. My heart beat a mile a minute as I struggled to blow up the raft in the middle of the night, lit up only by the headlights of my car. Just when I thought I was going to use up every breath in my body, it was done. I tossed the shovel and metal detector into the orange plastic vessel, shoved it onto the waters, and started paddling with my hands to the island in the middle of the lake.

By the time I arrived on the shore, I was soaking wet and breathing hard. But this was no time for regretting never exercising; there was treasure to be found! Picking the compass out of my pocket, and slinging the shovel over my shoulder, I walked due north, right where the X was on the map.

As I got closer, I turned on the metal detector. At first it was silent as the night, but then a faint beeping came from it. Louder and louder, faster and faster, until finally it was so intense I knew I had to be right where the treasure was buried.

Immediately I went to work. I shoved the head of the shovel into the earth and scooped it out, the only light coming from the smartphone between my teeth and the full moon above. It only took a minute of furious digging before the tip of the shovel clanged against something metallic. I stopped, crouched down, and reached into the hole, my fingers gripping around something cold. With every muscle inside of me, I pulled it out, grunting and groaning, until it was fully extracted and right in front of me.

The chest was made of solid metal, a lock on the front having been already broken in half. I threw it aside, and holding my breath, opened the top half of the chest.

Inside was ... another piece of paper. Furrowing my brow, I reached in and pulled it out, holding my smartphone flashlight up to it so I could read:

Congratulations customer!

You're a real "Amazon Explorer." Please find below a code for a free month trial of Amazon Prime, where you can get fast, FREE shipping on over 100 million eligible items, and enjoy instant access to video streaming of popular movies and TV shows such as Mozart in the Jungle.

We hope you use the items you purchased to accomplish this experience in more "Amazon Adventures" in the future!

Best,

The Amazon Team

I wept.

*****

This prompt was written with the help of chat at the ScottWritesStuff Twitch stream.