You find a jigsaw piece lying by the road.
You pocket it.
And there it stays. You forget about it.
Other things find their way into your pocket.
Spare change. Movie tickets. Keys. Condoms. Car keys. Chewing gum.
But, still it doggedly stays there.
For months, years, an eternity.
Once or twice, you fish it out.
You smile at it fondly. Fumble with it. Turn it upside down.
And then put it right back. Again to stay.
But then one day, you find another piece.
Between the pages of your favourite book.
The seventeenth time you’re reading it.
You get the old one out. And stare.
The two don’t fit. Yet. But maybe they will.
Now, you’re alert. Wary. Searching. Even scared a little.
You know it’s out there, waiting. You look everywhere.
Searching when you walk, talk, eat, play, sleep, sleep with.
Re-reading the entirety of your bookshelf.
To find that elusive, next
piece.
But you don’t.
Now, the two pieces are no longer in your pocket.
They stay together now, in a miscellaneous drawer.
Both forgotten. Good riddance, really.
Life goes back to normal.
You take a long vacation.
And return, relaxed. Mind clear.
You stop at your doorstep.
Set your suitcase down.
And dig into your pocket.
You find your keys, get in and settle on the couch.
Throw the suitcase open.
Browse through a million photos. Delete a few.
Then it crashes upon you.
A wall of a million jigsaw pieces.
You start to fit them together.
And they do, almost effortlessly.
One flows into the other. Into the other. Into the other.
Till there’s only two familiar spaces left.
You dig them out. Fit them in. And sigh, relieved.
Sometimes, writing can really, really take a while.
