On Puzzles

Puzzles don’t defy the laws of physics. Ever.

There are pieces. The amount prominently displayed on the cover. 
It’s satisfying and chaotic.

Dumping them out, separating the outer edges from corners into piles. Because that’s where you start, right? From the outside?

Then come the clicks.
The soft snaps of progress start to make sense of it all.
Silently learning the intricacies.
You shift again. Separating the navy from the turquoise. 
You work your way in.

Everyone silently agreeing that space,
the one with your pieces on it … all sitting on the corner of the kitchen table
is reserved.
For it.
For you. 

And then you swear one piece is missing. Scouring the floor, the piles, the inner corners of the box itself anxious that something was forgotten. Something was left out.

You find it, and press on pressing.

The biggest gift of all creeps up with a smirk and in a way, time stops.
That last empty space remains for a bit. Because you know once it’s filled, that will be that.

Your literal world, the cottage or space-scape you would gladly step into will only continue to exist for a short period of time.
As something whole. 
Created, found, bought and dumped as broken as could be.

Just what we are used to - broken pieces. 

Nonetheless. There it is. The piece that makes it all worth it.
The final one is gingerly placed where it belongs.
In the only space it could ever belong.

And then there it is.

Its own little 8x10 fantasy. And for a bit, it remains.

But its presence diminishes by the day. We no longer call others over to look at it with pride, and it’s just not important enough to be spoken about in conversations.

Slowly creeping up, we realize that we need that space once again.
For coffee, leftovers, homework…

another puzzle.

Boxing it back up. Probably for the first and last time. And on the shelf it stays as a memory of the time you made something from nothing.

All by yourself.