Puzzles

How to make a puzzle

It was a Friday, which meant that we were both tired and that what we really wanted to do was fight with another about who had had the longer week. Not everything we desire is healthy though. So we spent the evening making a puzzle. The puzzle was of an unnamed city in Europe. For a while we talked about the architecture and speculated upon the possible locations: Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Moscow, Berlin. We didn't really know much about different types of architecture, but we also didn't like admitting that we didn't know things, so we'd pepper our conversation with "Doric column or Tudor style." 

If you're putting together a puzzle it's always important to start with the border. Those pieces are the easiest to find. I remembered this from my childhood when I used to frequently put together puzzles. I stopped for a long time until we came up with this idea to stop fighting on Friday nights. It was our third week working on puzzles. It was my night to choose the music. I preferred upbeat things, but I put on some Chopin because I thought it was more in keeping wit the atmosphere of puzzling, which is maybe or maybe not a word that is used to describe puzzling. Since I don't actually know whether it is or not I could describe my interaction with the word as puzzling. 

The border on the left side was comprised of grey slate stone that made up part of a large house that extended beyond the frame. The right side of the puzzle included bits of a river disappearing into the distance and a purple flower,  maybe wisteria, climbing along an old wall that ran parallel to the river.

I didn't understand why they'd put a stone wall in front of the river, maybe to protect people, but they result was that they'd obscured a portion of the view of the river, and the ripples, and the light playing on the water. What they were doing with this wall could also be described as puzzling. 

She went to the kitchen, opened a bottle of Merlot and asked what was playing. "Something by Chopin," I said, and she asked why. I told her it was in keeping with the act of constructing a puzzle and drinking wine. "Says who?" she asked. And I could tell she kind of wanted to fight because it was a Friday, and we were both so bone weary and tired in ways that we couldn't begin to describe. Really, we wanted to tear a hole in the seam of the universe to describe exactly how shitty we were feeling, but we were listening to a beautiful piano piece that sounded a bit like rain, or spring, or maybe just a very well played piano piece. 

"You can change it if you want," I said. And she bent, and I looked at the firm outline of her butt against the thin fabric of her skirt. What would the evening bring? I had a pice of Wisteria that looked like it was going to connect rather beautifully with a piece of old stone wall. In truth, though the conceit has already worn through, everything is puzzling.