Jack was a free-lance web and graphic designer, and worked out of his studio apartment. He usually had no problem separating his work and personal time, but this particular day he just couldn't get going. It was now early evening, and the whole day looked pretty much like a write off. He stared at the box awhile longer, bringing it in and out of focus as he tried to get some idea of what the completed puzzle should look like, if indeed it even was a puzzle.

He was about to put the box down and peruse his DVD collection for a movie to watch when a light bulb went off almost painfully in his head. He rushed over and woke up his graphic workstation, then placed the box on his flatbed scanner. He scanned all six sides of the box, and then started the painstaking work of tracing each inlay piece. Two hours and three pb&j's later, he had each inlay piece displayed separately on his monitor, and could move each around as kind of a virtual jig saw puzzle. Satisfied with his evening's progress, and tired of staring at pictures of little pieces of wood, he saved his work, watched a movie and went to bed.

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The next morning, knowing that if he started playing with his virtual puzzle he would get nothing else done, he tore into the project he had put off completing the day before. He put the finis.h.i.+ng touches on it in record time and by early afternoon he was ready to start again on the puzzle. He had no other projects scheduled for more than a week, so his goal was to solve the stupid thing before then. The rest of that day and all the next he worked like a man possessed, ignoring calls from friends and all but the most persistent urges to eat, sleep or use the john.

He tried combination after combination of pieces until his vision blurred, but eventually an image began to form in the middle of his screen. The top of the box was solved first, as it was the easiest. It resolved into a beautiful and stunningly detailed image of a woman's face. The sides and bottom were harder as they were mostly geometric patterns. By the evening of the second full day, however, he had it solved, at least electronically. He saved the files and then decided to reward himself by going out for dinner and a few beers. He called a couple of friends he had been ignoring for the previous few days and asked them to come along.