Samira had just bought her first car—a modest used Toyota Corolla. It wasn’t flashy, but it was hers, and that made it feel like a triumph. She’d recently left her corporate job to pursue writing, so every dollar mattered. The car was her quiet declaration of independence.
But the next morning, her phone rang. An unknown number. Against her better judgment, she answered.
“Hi, is this the new owner of the Corolla?” a man asked, his voice tight with urgency.
“Yes,” she replied cautiously.
“I’m the previous owner. I left something under the seat. It’s… alive.”
Alive?
Samira’s mind raced. A baby? A dog? Something illegal? The man begged to meet her, promising it was contained and harmless. Against her instincts, she agreed to meet him at a nearby park.
Twenty minutes later, a nervous young man named Ben arrived in a beat-up pickup truck. He looked disheveled but sincere. Without much small talk, he dropped to his knees beside the car and pulled out a small plastic box—sealed, with air holes.
Inside? Live insects.
“I feed them to my pet gecko,” he explained sheepishly. “I must’ve left the box under the seat while unloading the car.”
Samira burst out laughing. The tension cracked open into shared amusement. Ben joined in, relieved. He explained that the gecko belonged to his younger brother, who adored it. The bugs were part of their daily routine.
To make up for the scare, Ben offered to buy her coffee. Samira hesitated, then agreed—with one condition: “Take me to a car wash first. I need to erase every trace of bug paranoia.”
They laughed again, and something shifted. Over coffee, Ben told her about his brother, the school nearby, and the life he was trying to build. Samira listened, intrigued. It wasn’t a meet-cute from one of her stories—but maybe it could be the start of one.
As they sat together, sipping coffee and watching the Corolla get scrubbed clean, Samira wondered: What else might be hiding beneath the surface of ordinary days?
