Jigsaw Puzzle Man
Surely inspired by the fiction reading I’m doing now, written by my high school friend, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall (see the previous blog posting), I dug through an old trunk to find my few attempts at fiction. Here’s a sketch I wrote many years ago.It was loosely inspired by the Persian poet, Rumi.
Jigsaw Puzzle Man
His name was Jigsaw and he lived alone. He had become a puzzle to himself some time ago when he had, almost accidentally, discovered that he was more than just a man, made up of skin and bones. One day, taking inventory, he found his soul and then it became necessary to rearrange the other pieces to get them in their proper order. He put the soul on top, balanced precariously on his head. But it kept falling off whenever his feet shot out from under him in a headlong run after something that another part of his body needed. After that, he slung it around his neck, but it felt so like an albatross, he took it off. Carrying it in his hands was clumsy and it somehow seemed undignified to wear it on his feet.
So there he stood, in a perfect quandry, awkwardly holding it like a crying infant in his arms, for it was hungry and needed constant feeding. Funny. Before he noticed it, he never fed it and it slept soundly in the puzzle box, never causing any problems. Now, however, it was growing at an alarming rate and always at him for more attention; nagging him when he was having harmless fun, moving him in some unknown direction.
With distinct and certain pleasure though, he loved that soul, for it was something endless and unknown, a new dimension, a portal to another world, perhaps. Its company was certainly stimulating and in their frequent conversations, he began to suspect that it had the greater intelligence.
For the moment though, he still had the power and there were things he simply had to do. Sometimes these things caused battles with this second self, great wrestling matches somewhere deep within. And even when he won the bout and went ahead with what he wanted, the victory tasted sour in his mouth and the tarnished prize was often tossed away.
He checked himself against the picture on the box. He looked alright. The arms and legs and eyes and ears were all accounted for. And yet, he knew that there was something missing. Some unknown part was gone, had never been there and yet existed somewhere. Only the empty hole had been issued to him, a jigsaw gap with random sides. A keyhole that was as uniquely his as his own fingerprint. An incompleteness that caused him restless stirring in his sleep and made his soul unsatisfied. It was as if this missing part was the cork for the bottle of his body. Uncorked, the effervescence disappeared.
She had it! But who was she? And where was she? That was the thought that mobilized his moments. That was the quest that took his time away. That was the search that had him sifting in the sand.
“Who do you seek?” they said. And he would always answer, “Layli. I seek Layli, for she holds the secret to myself.” And they would always leave, shaking their heads in sadness to see him sitting in the dust, alone and ever-hopeful.
Above him loomed the mountain, his precious mountain. And there, the path that he had carved so many times before. It took him to his universe, now all but forgotten in his search. He knew it well. It called to him to come create another world, and then another, and then another, still. It was his work and he was well-equipped for it, except for finding Layli.
Then, through his longing he perceived a newly-sounding sound of love among the trill, shrill songs of commerce. Uneasy, he conversed with it. Unknowing, he diversed with it. Unworried, he rehearsed with it. Unsuspecting, he dispersed with it. And yet, his heart returned to it, yearned for it and burned for it.
“Layli? Layli, is it you, at last? And where? Where do you call from? How do I even know your name? What part of me is in your hand? This is the greater puzzle. I call. You answer. Now, you call. How shall I answer?”
“Oh, Jigsaw Man, there is a ridge, well beyond the saddle block. I stand there waiting. Climb up and find me. I am calling from these heights above. Leave off those dusty trails below and enter only trials of love. For love does have trials, make no mistake. But what blessings those muscle-stretchings make. It’s worth the climb..and climb…and climb again. I’m here, where views go on forever. Where worlds are born and never die. Where love is summits without number. Don’t think me in the dust. Don’t mark me there, the product of man’s grinding footfall. Not at all! I’m in the heights above, soaring beyond your present view. And here I’ve been, calling wordlessly to you.
So, hoist your pack. The day has come. It’s time and time and then some. We have a way to go and that leads up. There’s Shangri-La up there and that’s our home. You’re late for dinner, by the way. Oh yes, I brought you this. You might want to wear it now to keep the wind from whistling through you so convincingly.
It goes like this. Hmmmmm, no… Maybe this way? I know it goes right here. It’s supposed to fit just snugly in, if I’m the one. And then it resonates, and then it hums, and then we bond…and then we like it very well. Where’s mine? Let’s see if they’re alike? Why, yes they are! Which way is up, I wonder? I never was much good at puzzles. Well, mine fits right away. Oh, here’s the difference! That spot from which you knew to look for mine has opened up the extra wedge we needed. Now yours will go in easily… in that forever hole you’ve been trying in the dust to fill. There, it’s done! Let’s see what happens now.”
“Layli! I hear the sound of music! Will wonders never cease? This cardboard hole had muffled all the sounds. I lay in broken pieces half the time, and took so long to sort myself, I never had the time to sing my song. My soul is singing! It’s my soul! It’s in there too, behind your gift. You’ve given it a home! Now I feel whole! I am whole, and so are you.
Were you wounded with this vast gap, as well? So noise moved through and not around? And now, with this new piece you brought me, I am so tightly fit; so ready for these mountains that this sound comes clear and bell-like through a crystal me. There are no sawlines now, no pieces and no parts.
And you the same! We will not break apart, like puzzles, even should we run, or leap, or sometimes fall. It’s safe to be ourselves. Our missing has been linked and it is over!”
“But, not our calling to each other, Love! That’s just begun. So, let us navigate this pathless place, and, mapless, find the way to everywhere and everyone, together.”
Tags: 1, finding each other, Puzzles between men and women, Rumi, the Persian poet, Tag Index
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