By Jai
Date: 3 August 2000
Dear ___________
Dear ________________,
You know how it is. How we all get a puzzle the day we are born. The doctor does his little cut, so precise and carefully, his knife slicing away the noodle flesh. Then the white starched nurse; who must have worked as a model before because those baby eyes can't be torn of her face, slaps your behind. A simultaneous whack! and wail follow, and begin to warn all those pre-born babies of deception.
Then to soothe us, or too comfort us or perhaps to relive themselves of that headache, they give you a black box. It's small, about the size of a baby's fist. What was inside this nightingale cardboard that was impressing it's significance with a mighty air of importance, I didn’t know. After all it was my birth and everyone was looking at this black contraption! Inside there was only one cardboard piece. It was an odd shape with squares with little dips and protruding half circles. They showed it to me and closed the lid of the box. If I could have read, it would have simply stated "Your Life"
From that moment I tirelessly set pieces into place. My 5th grade basketball championship fit in nicely, but oh god! The annoying puzzle piece that depicts me kissing the pimply girl with braces for the first time, until we got entangled together in a barbwire fence, that doesn’t fit to well.
So the time came, when I went under my bed, and I eased out the black box that had grown linearly, exponentially, and all other ways you mathematic geniuses can think of. I opened the nightingale box and smiled. All laid out like an old family quilt. I gently placed you into my quilt, sliding you into that space that had been empty for to long.
......................
Alas…I wrenched you out of my heart. I forced you to become a wisp of air, and you sailed out of in the milky sailboat. I did everything and nothing. I merely watched as my tears provided you the blue ocean for your misty boat.
You know all this I presume? Forgive me. I do not wish to invite pain upon you…but
Grim Reaper knocked on my door tonight. We were to journey to the beyond, but as the order of the universe required he gave me time for one final glance of the black box, and the thick cardboard puzzle. He slowly opened the nightingale box, creaking his joints to an eerie harmony, the black hood, and silver sickle clashing together in a silent battle.
The music ceased in astonishment
The black robe and silver sickle stole a glance at me with compassionate non-existent eyes, and pointed his pale skeletal finger at the puzzle.
There.
Was no puzzle.
Only pieces that cannot care to fit together.
Only a nightingale box.
Only a downpour of tears creating an ocean.
How was I to know that you completed me in heart and soul?
How was I to know that you were the only piece of me that mattered?
How was I to know that you were the puzzle in the nightingale box?
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