Life.

“Are you hungry?” Mr. Dobson had a recognizable rasp in his voice, but Jason hadn’t heard that voice in some time.

“Uh, what?” Jason was confused. He had just passed out in his room and now he was back at Bridgefield, sitting at a wide table across from Mr. Dobson who was offering him some food. “Naw, I’m good,” his hoarse response caused him to swallow as he look around the room. “How did I get here?”

Mr. Dobson gently set a package on top of the worn oak table and slid it across the uneven grain until it was in front of Jasons stomach. He stepped back and sat down in the wingback chair he had nestled in the corner of the room just a few feet from the table and quietly observed the man who convened in front of him. Jason stared curiously at the container. It had no discernable markings and it wasn’t flashy in any way, just another carboard box. Confused, he directed his attention towards Mr. Dobson.

“What is this?”

Mr. Dobson continued his concentration on Jason as he processed the question. However, he remained rigid and didn’t respond. He gently blinked, seemingly to let Jason know he was still cognizant.

Jason, frustrated, picked up the package and began to examine it methodically. He quickly realized that it came in two sections, what appeared to be a lid and what looked to be an underside. He then shook the object in his hands, much like he did as a kid a few days before Christmas, to try and spoil the mystery of its contents. The box was heavier than he imagined and it rattled as he shook it. He recognized the sound.

“A puzzle?” Jason looked up from the item inquisitively at Mr. Dobson, his head tilted to the side, face contorted. “Why did you give me a puzzle?”

Mr. Dobson continued to casually observe Jason without verbalizing a response. He then reached for a book that sat on the side table next to him and opened it, thumbing through pages as if he’d read the novel before and was looking for an enjoyable section.

Jason stopped shaking the package and set it back on the table in front of him. He watched it for a few moments trying to figure out what it meant. Perplexed, he decided to open the box and examine its contents to quell his curiosity. Inside sat a pile of jagged pieces all clumped together in a group of colors; a harmoniously chaotic scene lay before him. He ran his fingers through the pile, each piece revealing a part of a scene, fragmented and crammed in a restricting space. He looked back at Mr. Dobson who had lost all interest in Jason and his puzzle.

Jason dug his hand into the pile and emerged with a half-dozen pieces in his palm. He tilted his wrist slightly until the pieces began to cavalcade back into their original resting place. He noticed a few of the pieces had straight edges and started to pick those out and place them on the surface before him. One by one, he placed the edged pieces on the table, each one with an individual pattern and shape but all serving the purpose of creating a boundary for the inevitable image. When he couldn’t see any more side pieces, he would again run his fingers through the pile to expose more. Eventually, that became frustrating and he began to pull out piles of the pieces and sift through them like a miner panning for gold, each successful find made him that much more excited and strengthened the intensity of his hunt.

After some time, he was sure he had uncovered every piece of the boundary he could find and begun to examine the scattering of segments in front of him. It wasn’t until that point that he realized that the puzzle did not come with a picture for reference and the unmarked box was of no help either.

“How am I supposed to know what this puzzle is of?” He asked Mr. Dobson, agitated. Mr. Dobson flipped to the next page of his book and adjusted the glasses that hung on the end of his nose. He was of no help to Jason. “Well, fuck.” He said in a murmur that only him and Mr. Dobson could hear. Mr. Dobson raised an eyebrow at the statement, but didn’t break eye contact with the sentences he was enthralled in.

All sorts of colors and shades lay before Jason. Blues, yellows, browns, light pieces, dark ones, blurry ones and ones that appeared to have no color at all. He carefully scanned the mixture of hues and odd shapes until he found a corner piece, and another, until he eventually found all four. “It’s a start, I guess,” he continued in the same hushed tone as before. However, he quickly realized he had no idea the orientation of the image so the corners could wrap up the picture at any spot. Jason figured he had a one in four shot and placed each one at the far ends of the table spaced relatively evenly from the others. He then diverted his attention back to the abstraction in front of him. He methodically glanced at each piece, then back to the corners to find any sort of colored relevance or shapes that might intertwine. To his surprise, he found one. A sandy-colored one that matched one of the corners. And then he found another and another, each one being an individual piece that built on the collective. Jason was slowly building the framework of the fractured image.

Mr. Dobson set down his book and arose from his chair. His lanky body slowly slumped up until it was rigid, his tall frame wrapped in a sweater vest and neatly pressed slacks. He cleared his throat and peered at the work Jason had already completed in front of him. He then, slowly, turned around and began to walk out of the double doors at the far end of the room and disappeared behind them with a thud.

Jason hadn’t even noticed; he was too busy inspecting the chaotic splotches that lay before him. It wasn’t until the doors slung open and Mr. Dobson appeared with a fresh cup of coffee in his hand and began walking back to his chair that Jason had noticed nearly a half hour had passed since he was given the mysterious package. Mr. Dobson let out an audible “hmm” as he walked past Jason’s workstation and noticed he was nearly finished with the skeleton of the puzzle.

A frustrated exhale emitted from Jason as he realized that he had missed an edge piece during his erratic selection process. Irritated, he sat the staring at the table. Fuck this, fuck Mr. Dobson, this shit is fucking stupid, he thought to himself. He contemplated his next move. He really didn’t want to have to comb through that entire pile again looking for just one piece, however, he was also determined. The puzzle, while maddening, was still oddly calming. It gave Jason some time to focus and silence the other thoughts that usually swirled in his head. So, out of desperation and a willingness to endure, he began to dig through the heap once more.

He was nearly through the mound when he finally located the last edge piece and placed it into its final resting place with a victorious tap of his finger. He had done it, but what was it supposed to be of, he wondered. He had no knowledge of orientation and, while the pieces created the outline of the picture, he still had no idea what it was or if he even had it rotated correctly. He then became irritated at the thought of placing all those pieces neatly in the area, individually, without knowing what he was creating.

“Well, now what are you going to do?” Again, Jason hadn’t even noticed Mr. Dobson leave his chair. He was now standing behind him, bent at the waist, looking over Jason’s shoulder. “Sure seems like you have some work ahead of you.” Mr. Dobson seemed to have a hint of sarcasm to his voice. Jason thought it arrogant, but he was in no place to judge. He slammed his palm back into the stack and rummaged around through the fragments. Like he did with the corners, he slowly began to find wedges that aligned with the others before him. This was painstakingly unbearable to Jason and it didn’t help that most of the pieces appeared to be upside down in the pile and hard to differentiate from the others.

He tried a multitude of ways to find some semblance of interconnectivity. He’d pull a piece, assuming it had the same design as another one he had already placed in the puzzle, twisting it to try and fit it in with the rest only to realize it wasn’t the same. And this went on for what seemed like years. All the while, Mr. Dobson sat obliviously in his red chair in silence scanning his novel and sipping his java.

Jason had a few sections built up in different quadrants of the table when he thumped his fist on the surface and scattered a few pieces around the area. He was ready to flip the table and walk out. He couldn’t manage the emotions he was going through; anger, depression, anxiety, hyper fixation, all of which culminated inside of him in a torrent of passion. He was just about to stand up when Ronnie walked past his station. “Puzzle, eh?” He examined the success that Jason had accomplished so far. He then sifted through the pile and found a few chunks that filled in some of the gaps Jason had left. Jason watched as Ronnie seemingly located piece after piece and placed them in the maze before him.

Ronnie was Jason’s neighbor he had met some years ago. While he never really remembered the day they met, he always seemed to run into him just when Jason needed him to.

Recharged as Ronnie eventually walked away distracted by some other action in the distance, Jason felt a second wind as he began to build off what Ronnie had added to the image. It was coming together. Soon, the groups of random images began to connect and build something that could almost be recognizable. What started out as a group of amorphous entities, soon became whole scenes that folded into each other beautifully. There was a purpose and it begun to make sense to Jason. As the pieces dwindled in the pile, he began to place them more quickly in their locations.

It wasn’t long before Jason had finally finished the puzzle. All of the colors and uneven segments came together to create one large image. Jason exhaled and caught the breath he had held while he finished. “Excellent,” Mr. Dobson said as he peered at the final image. “Wonderful job.”

“Why the hell did you have me do this, Dobsonstein?” He used that nickname often to cut the tension of their conversations, not knowing if Mr. Dobson even enjoyed him calling him that.

“Life.” Mr. Dobson said with passion, “it’s all about the life we create.”

“Life?” Jason obviously didn’t understand and didn’t know whether to respond with a question or a statement. “Life.”

Mr. Dobson took a moment to respond. He clasped his hands at his mouth and inhaled as he slowly closed his eyes. The air grew thick as he opened his mouth to speak between his cupped palms. “I handed you a box of unknown contents and I put the choice in your hands. When you first started the puzzle, you had no idea what you were doing. You had very little information to go off of and only fragments of ideas in a collective space. Eventually, you started to lay down the edge pieces because that made sense to you.”

“Well, yeah, it makes sense.” Jason said with an agreeable tone, still confused at the endeavor.

“Early on in our life, we spend most of the time developing and understanding our boundaries. Our likes, dislikes, wants, needs, understandings, we build the framework to our identities. It becomes a shell of ourselves, our personality, it encapsulates what it means to be us.”

Jason sat there stunned. He heard what Mr. Dobson was saying but had trouble working out the abstract analogy.

“Eventually, you thought you had all of your boundaries completed until you realized you were missing a piece,” he continued in an informative tone, “so you went back into the pile to find the remainder. You were tested, frustrated, and finally, relieved once you found that edge. It isn’t always easy defining yourself and sometimes, you don’t even know you are missing a portion until you sift through other challenges and scenarios to find them. That being said, however, everyone is unique in how they make puzzles. You did what made sense to you. Some people start internally and build out until they find the edges. They have no idea where the end is until they crash into it.”

Silence.

“After you found what defined the whole of the image, you begun to search for the internal pieces. Reminiscences of an image that slowly became formless clumps of colors, shapes, gradients and patterns. Your feelings, memories, doubts, fears, loves and hates. The filler of you as a person all built off experiences, moments in time that collectively shaped what it means to be Jason. There were moments that you were really passionate about and moments where you just wanted to give up. Everyone feels this way, it wouldn’t be much of a life if everything went smoothly all of the time. However, this is where things become part of an identity. Some people race through the puzzle and want to find the final image, they’ll do whatever it takes to reach that goal and soak in every last piece they have. Some people just give up. They throw the pieces to the floor, end the experience and walk away unfulfilled. You almost did the same, however you seemed to get another desire to work on the puzzle after Ronnie helped you out, yeah?”

“Well, yeah,” stammered Jason, still trying to work out all that Mr. Dobson was telling him, amazed at what the puzzle represented. “It gave me a fresh perspective; he helped me locate pieces I couldn’t and kept me from giving up.”

“Life is funny that way. We all need help from time to time, so in times of need, we seek that familiarity to continue our journey. However, Ronnie was only a minimal aspect of the project. While he did assist, he knew it was your puzzle and could only reset your feelings towards the puzzle, he was not there to complete it for you. It’s not his puzzle. He has his own puzzle to work on.”

Jason looked at the completed puzzle slowly working out the details of what he was being told. He gripped his hand around his opposite wrist and played with the white bracelet that encompassed it.

“When your mother dropped you off here, you were reluctant. You were ready to flip the table and give up. This place, Ronnie, myself, your mother, we are all here to help you continue to complete the puzzle, to support you, to be an extra set of eyes to reveal what you’ve lost track of.”

Jason, methodically thinking through the analogy, paused for a second and thought about the box that started this whole experience. He continued to rub his wrist, slowly moving past the joint and onto his forearm. He felt the tightly wound bandages that wrapped around his mistakes.

“We all learn from ourselves in some way or another, but that’s what creates who we are. It’s times like these were we need to step back and take a breath and really examine the totality of the puzzle, how far we’ve come and how much we need to complete it.”

Jason went back to concentrating on the puzzle in more detail. He looked at the inner locking patterns and how they all fit together smoothly. What was once clumps of colors blend together to create an even bigger image in a seamless dance.

“Step back. Breathe. Take a look. Really see the image in its full form.”

It took Jason a moment to realize he actually hadn’t looked at the whole picture. He’d spent so much time focusing on the details he didn’t stop to see what he was creating. His vision zoomed out and he focused on the whole table. He saw browns and greens and blues come together to form a beach, somewhere in a tropical climate. Birds flew around the canopies of the tree as waves crashed on the shoreline. He could almost hear the ebb and flow of the water and smell the fresh, salt-kissed, air. As he panned upwards, he noticed a dark storm on the horizon as it drifted away from the island. The sun shone through the clouds and illuminated the surroundings, almost encapsulating the storm itself. And on the sea, near the shore, he noticed a lone boat floating in the tide. A man, sat on the wooden plank, his clothes tattered from knowledge, barely moving the oars. However, the sun gleamed on his backside and cast a faint shadow on the ocean below him. He seemed content. He was only a few strokes away from familiarity.

“Paradise,” Jason said to himself with a smile.