A mysterious box was sitting on the doorstep. I mean really, the box couldn't have been more mysterious, it was meant to be mysterious. It was a dark blue, almost black, with silver question marks that sparkled all over it. Two feet on each side making a cube, it wasn't wrapped, the box itself was crafted this way, some sort of plastic that fit together tightly.

It took me ten full minutes to figure out how to open it, some sort of complicated locking mechanism that open elegantly, like a Chinese puzzle box. Inside the box was a mish mash of things, bits of string, a fuzzy yellow ball, some odd looking paper dolls, an unlabeled CD, among other things. And on top of it all was a silver envelope, closed but not sealed.

"Congratulations on receiving the box of mystery. Inside is all you need for your mystery, both to create it and to solve it. Good luck!"

The note was typed and unsigned, with no sign of who had sent the box or where it had come from. There was no mailing label, it must have been dropped at my doorstep.

I spent the next week pulling out the seemingly random objects, examining them all, and putting them down. None of them seemed to have any relation to any other piece, the red plastic scissors was just as strange as the glass angel figurine. There was no connection, and by the end of the week everything in the box, all 204 objects sat on my living room carpet. And I was just as confused. The mysterious note gave me no clue, no idea.

So I started grabbing random objects from my house. An old Christmas ornament. A piece of a model train. A pretty rock I had found on a hike. Wire's from some long dead cell phone. They and many more things went into the box. Last was the note, now back in the silver envelope, closed but not sealed. On top of everything else it went. I figured out how to close the box, and I pulled an old phone book out, to pick the next person to get the box. Randomly.