The Tale of the Mysterious Parcel

I was sitting at my desk at work when yet another of a procession of delivery men filed into our office with a cardboard parcel. The human resources colleague accepted it and dropped off the parcel into the largest room in our office, then wrote a note to all of us informing us that there was no name on the parcel.

Having read newspapers and short stories of a criminal bent in the course of my lifetime, and having watched a considerable quantity of hours of television, this inflamed my imagination.

In short order I observed that my colleagues were as fascinated.

We have a principal rival within the electronic commerce field, and a coworker theorized that the parcel was a Trojan horse for corporate espionage. Many of us wondered non-seriously whether it was what was once called an 'infernal machine,' and a colleague from the Middle East noted rather drily that in his native country one would have sent someone in to defuse the package by this time.  But one of the colleagues opened the package (I sort of wished he wouldn't, in case it was actually dangerous).

This opening took place in a different room. Our prying eyes could be of no use to us. The curiosity did not die down.

Our Australian colleague (who seemed to be, as they say, 'seized of the matter') laconically noted that none of us had exploded, so we should be pleased with the outcome.

Then a colleague who is working in an annex two floors up in our building, hopped into the conversation. She hurriedly wrote that if it was incense, it was for her. Hilarity ensued and I wasn't certain if she meant it as a statement of fact, or as a comedic anticlimax.

There was little or no discussion of the subject during lunch (as far as I could tell), although our long and satisfyingly thorough discussions mostly take place then. I presumed all questions from relevant parties — instead of insatiable snoops like me — had been answered.

Apparently not. After lunch the colleague of the incense asked what the package had been. The colleague who opened it answered, 'It should probably remain a secret package.'

Of course I believe as a morally upright individual that the post should remain secret except as the rightful recipient wishes it to be revealed. But I admit that I am still all agog to hear about what was within the secret package.

(And I contributed to the conversation by mentioning the lurid Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of the Cardboard Box.")