‘Yeah just stand there like that. I’m practicing a magic trick that I have to do on Letterman. I’m going to pour milk into …’

‘… pour milk into the box yeah yeah yeah. I’ve seen this before but isn’t there like some sort of trick like a tube or something?’

‘Do you see me wearing long sleeves?’ I asked him with a smile. He gave me a weird look.

‘Y’know on second thought…’ I grabbed the box from his hands. ‘I probably need someone a bit more knowledgeable in the field of magic.’

‘Hey, no I can do it’ He said grasping at the box.

‘I KNOW you CAN do it but thats not the problem, Owen. The problem is this’ I knelt before him with the box in front of our eyes and grabbed a lamp to illuminate it.

‘Ok… to be completely honest. I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone ever. This box is a magic box.’

‘Yeah right tell me another one’

‘Yes, I know it just looks like cardboard but it actually collects ‘magic’. I mean look at how old this is. I have had this since I was a kid but it looks like the day I first got it. I have spilled and stained and crushed this box and it still looks like it always did.’

I spun the box around in my hands and then handed it to him. ‘It was given to me by an old carny and it works as long as I don’t open it. And the thing is that sometimes there is nothing in there and other times there IS something in there.’

Owen gave it a shake and the box did nothing. He looked at me sideways half trying to figure out if i was trying to trick him or not.

‘I don’t know how it does it, it just does. And I’m actually trying to figure out HOW it it does it but I need the help of someone who believes in order for this to work. Can you help me?’

‘He looked at me for a while with a raised eyebrow and then handed me the box in an open palm. ‘It’s just a stupid box’.

‘Damn shame… could have been a frog in their’ I said smiling at him.

At that moment, the box jumped from his hand to mine.

‘Omigod!’ he screamed and grabbed the box from my hand shaking it againand then looked up at me with amazement when he found there was no rattle.

‘You better not be tricking me!’ he threatened.

‘If I’m tricking you then I’m tricking myself and we’re in this together. You ready to find out whats in that box?’

‘Damn straight!’

I turned off the hairdryer and shook the box once more so I could listen to the rattle to see if I could tell what it was. I had had years of experience guessing presents by their rattle alone and I could get it right every time. A soft rustling was usually a sweater. A soft thumping was socks. Lots of hard soft rattling was a puzzle; clinky rattling was a snap together model. The problem with whatever was in that box now was that it the rattle kept changing. Everytime I thought I knew what was inside, the rattle would change.

Thats when I had the idea that I lived to regret. I realized that there was a crack large enough in the seal that I could slip paper in there and that if I could slip enough paper in there, I could limit the rattle or change it. That way if there are moving parts, I’d better be able to tell.

I made a long half inch piece of paper and rolled it around a pencil so I could rolled it under the crack easily. At first I didn’t think it was going to go and then it went easily. I started feeding it in slowly and then noticed something odd. On the other side of the box, I had some how managed to thread the other edge. I pulled on the paper and instantly dropped the box.

The paper was coming out of the box with writing on it. I pulled slowly as each word came into view…’O-P-E-N M-E…’

Now the real mystery is, where can I find the font that the question mark is printed in?

A known and determinate story element has a knowable meaning or value — let’s arbitrarily call it six. When it interacts with the thing-you-don’t-know, the meaning of that interaction remains partly unknowable: 6x.

The real problem — and this is pertinent to what happened to the Lost storyline — comes when you introduce another undefined and so-far-unknowable element into the story. When it interacts with another open-question so-far-undefined story element — call it xy — the number of contingent meanings that interaction can have is indeterminately huge.

That’s not a good thing. It’s too many open questions for the reader to hold in his or her mind. That mental space of potential meanings, which the reader has been maintaining, collapses into no meaning at all beyond plain old xy. This can happen within the space of a sentence.

If the story comes up with a concrete meaning for x further on down the road, the contingent meanings of y will probably have to be brought up again, if you want to have any chance of the reader following what’s going on when you finally concretize y.

Surprise revelations really need to pay their own way.

….ummm I think it happened to me just there.

Now my mind was playing tricks on me. Of course, I have only had about 5 hours of sleep in the last couple of days and have been working long hours. My brain is pretty fried. And obviously, someone at work is trying to play with my head.

But I NEVER told anyone about the box! The only person who ever knew about the box was the same old creepy carny who gave it to me that day.

I took another look at the tape that was placed on the lid to reseal the box. Obviously the box has been opened so it’s ok if I open it now, right? But why was the boxing asking me to open it if it already HAD been opened.

Oh GOD! I’m now rationalizing this as if it was an animate object. Simply because of some typing on a piece of paper. I took a look at the paper again. The words were gone. Great. This all HAD been a figment of my imagination. I had another swig from the bottle and went to bed. I placed the box on the pillow next to me, gave it a stern glance and said ‘stay’.

I watched a couple seconds half expecting it to make a run for the door and then let my head collapse onto the pillow allowing the box to soak up what it could of my bizarre dreams.

On the other hand, this fucking box is probably what Abrams uses for inspiration when he “promotes” his movies, especially Cloverfield and Star Trek Recycled – show box with generic packaging, and give away nothing just to be a jerk…

http://www.dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_025.htm

We didn’t have any money and there were no other kids our age out that far in the country by the farm. My aunt also only spoke german and didn’t like children very much so we tried to stay out of her way as much as possible. The only enjoyment we had at all was when the fair came to town. That was when I discovered the box.

I had managed to save up enough money from doing odd chores and collecting soda bottles to take in a couple rides and get a soda or two. And it was coming towards the end of the day when a hunched carnie approached me.

‘Hey kid. You look like the kind who has a curious mind?’ he said looking sideways at me.

I wasn’t sure what he was getting at but was naive enough to let him continue.

‘How would you like to purchase one of the most magical objects in the universe?’ At that moment he reached into his tattered jacket to grab something. I stumbled back for a second wondering whether this would have been an opportune moment to run.

‘Voila! The box of mystery!’ He shouted pulled out the a cardboard box with a question mark on the side.

‘It’s just a stupid box’ I said looking at it with a smirk.

‘To those with no imagination, yes. But to those whose mind wanders, whose nogging is neverending whose brain boggles, it can be whatever you think it is.’ He shoved the box in my hand with his grimy mitt.

‘As long as you never open it, it feeds on what you THINK is inside it. Whatever you think can be inside it actually IS and the box collects those imaginions…”

‘Imaginions?’

‘Imaginions. They are the particles that power the imagination. Without them you would turn into an accountant or lawyer or some other lower life form that has no soul.’

I turned the box over in my hands and let my imagination go wild. I wonder what could be inside. A toy? Maybe some candy… or maybe a frog! At that moment, the box jumped in my hands!

‘OMIGOD! Hey mister did you see that..!?’ I turned up to shout to the stranger but he had gone.

Eventually I did open that box… and that is why I warn you now. Get rid of that box while you still can.

I would offer to let people reach into the bag, but they couldn’t look inside the bag. Not a single person would reach in the bag.

What did I carry in the bag?
A secret.
That’s what.

:D