Pieces
Posted on: 28/8/2021
Two children sat in the middle of a small, dark room, with only each other, the small yellow bulb on the ceiling and a few insects as company. The wooden floor was dusty, with a few dislocated boards. The room had little in it but for the jigsaw puzzle the two children had laid onto the ground.
“Alice, can we go play at my place next time? I don’t like the kids here, they’re mean. The adults are mean, too.”
“Akit, don’t you remember? That lady Marta looks after us. She would hit me if I go out.”
The girl inched her arm closer to the light and pointed at a tear among many in her dirty shirt. They were all courtesy of that old lady Marta, a senior in Alice’s orphanage and the main caretaker, either from her careless hands when washing it, or from her ferocious whip when punishing Alice. If the light were a bit brighter, Akit would see a few red stripes and marks on her arm.
“This place is full of mean people! I wish you could stay where I am. The caretakers are very nice! I’m sure I can ask them to bring you in.”
Akit fared better than his playmate. His orphanage was across the street, past the flower hedges and the main road. He would run to Alice’s every afternoon, whenever Marta was herding a different collection of brats.
“I don’t think it’s that simple…”
Out of slight melancholy, Alice took a jigsaw piece and dragged it over the floorboard a bit with her finger. The piece slipped through a crack and fell through. The girl reached her hand trying to get it back, but failed to do so. Akit took a small stick and pushed it to where he was.
“Thanks, Akit. I wish we didn’t have to play here…”
Before he could hand her the piece, shouting rang out from behind the door. The two children peeked through to see Marta, in her greasy apron and nanny outfit that seems to have never been washed, come through the main door and shouting for the children to gather in the dining hall.
“Oh no! She’s already back. Quick, we have to clean up. Then I’ll run past her.”
The two children picked up the jigsaw pieces and dropped them back into the small yellow cardboard box with the colorful cover.
“Oh, wait! Akit, here is your letter!”
Alice pulled out a piece of half-folded paper from under the jigsaw box. Her jumpers’ pockets were ripped.
“Oh, I almost forgot! Sorry, this is yours!”
He pulled out a half-folded paper from his pocket as well. They both neatly secure the other’s letter in any place that can hold it.
“See you later, Akit!”
Alice waved to him from the window after he had snuck out from the orphanage and to behind the flower hedge.
“Young lady, do you know what time it is?”
Marta stood with her hands against her hips, her acne-ridden face showing obvious displeasure. Alice put her hands together before her chest and bowed apologetically.
“I’m sorry I’m late for dinner today, Marta. I promise I would be good next time.”
“You know the rules, go to your room.”
“But-”
Before Alice could utter another word, the lady stepped forward menacingly, the metal spatula in her right hand now coming in full view.
“Have I not taught you not to talk back at me? Such insolence! This is why no one has adopted you, brat. Sleep for as long as you want, because you will not get breakfast. Spoiled children like you must be punished.”
The lady pointed her spatula at the staircase that led to the bedroom. Alice daren’t make another move, and dragged herself up the stairs and to her shared bedroom. She dropped herself onto the dirty mattress on the rusty white iron frame, and sighed as she put away the jigsaw box under the bed.
The children’s yelling and the clank of metal bowls and trays could still be heard. They must be serving something good tonight, Alice thought. She returned to her bed, taking the jigsaw puzzle out. As the noise downstairs died down, she almost finished the puzzle, but one piece was missing. She lifted the cover, looked under the bed, around the frame, under the mattress, but couldn’t find the last piece. While she was looking, one of the children snatched the box in which the nearly-complete puzzle was held, and all of them tore at the small cardboard box. Alice looked on helplessly, and all she could do was pick up any piece that she could find.
“It is bedtime now, children!”
Marta’s sugarcoated voice was never unrecognizable. The children knew that, and rushed to their respective beds. Alice was still tearing up as she picked up the puzzle pieces, but she caught a glimpse of Marta’s glare from the corner of her eye. She retired to her bed as well, albeit pouting as she did.
The lights were turned off. Whispered conversations were heard for a while before the room was filled with only snoring. Alice noticed this, and stopped pinching her arm – she had been doing that to keep herself awake. With no light, she crawled on the ground and felt her way across the cold marble floor, her eyes sparkling every time her hand grabbed a small, oddly-shaped piece of cardboard. The cold of the weather and the floor helped keep her awake, but not much. By early morning, Alice had almost fallen asleep on the floor, but she found the near-last piece, and finally went to bed. She stored the jigsaw pieces inside her mattress.
The next morning, she felt her blanket weighed down upon her eyelids with the force of giants, but she refused to drift back into sleep when the other children rushed down for breakfast. She walked around for what seemed like forever, even going through other kids’ things to find the last puzzle piece. But then she remembered – Akit was handing it to her yesterday, but she forgot to take it. Remembering Akit, she also remembered the letter he had handed her. The two had a habit of exchanging letters, in which they would pretend to be different people, writing to more people; it was how they came to know each other.
“Dear Santa!
It’s still more than a month before Christmas, but I’m still writing this to see if you could do this small thing for me, haha. I have a friend named Alice, she lives in an orphanage near mine. I gave her a jigsaw puzzle for her birthday in June. It’s our only plaything. We would see if we could make the puzzle pieces into weird things, like when we made a giraffe out of the sky, haha. I wanted to ask you if you could give us another jigsaw puzzle? A big one, please. We don’t want to have to pass each other the puzzle every day I come to her place. It would make us really happy. Me and Alice have been good kids, I promise! You can give it to us anytime, maybe this Christmas! Then this would be an early letter.
Thank you Santa!
Akit.”
Suddenly something caught her view – Marta stood at the stairs, her whip’s ends dangling from the grip like octopus tentacles. The lady stepped up to Alice with a menacingly stern face.
“The other children told me you were up at night, crawling on the floor. I thought you said you would be good.”
Alice said nothing.
She dragged herself back to bed at noon, with no lunch and the feeling of knives lodged all over her body. Her stomach felt the worst, and she felt as if it were eating itself inside out. But she smiled, because Akit would come at 2PM, when that mean lady Marta left. She patiently waited while her wounds cooled. It was 1:55 when she leaned to the left to look at the clock. Despite the burning feeling still tormenting her body, she inched herself downstairs and to the front door, waiting for that boy to come from behind the flower hedge, so she could wave at him, and they would go inside the small room, away from the mean children, and he would give her the missing jigsaw piece, and they would talk about things out of this world…
She waited until. 3PM. Until 4PM. 5PM. She didn’t even notice until Marta’s call for dinner came, and she finally ate. But even though her stomach was satisfied, her mind was still aching. She couldn’t sleep that night.
For days, the jigsaw puzzle and the letter she had written him laid collected dust. Day by day, she leaned against the door, looking over the flower hedge, hoping that Akit would emerge. After a week, she had enough. When Marta went away, she snuck out and ran across the street to Akit’s orphanage, the jigsaw pieces kept in the safety of the letter she wrote for him. But she stood dead in her steps when she saw the orphanage blocked off by yellow and black metal barriers and tapes. The building seemed empty, and a few men with orange hats were standing around. She understood what was going on, and returned. That night was the first night she cried herself to sleep in a long time.
Many years passed.
“…and the employee of the month for November is… Alice!”
The employees applauded the woman on the stand. She was smiling, as she was standing here because of the many sleepless nights she had endured. The small business she had entered didn’t require much work, but she wanted to push herself to be the best she could be.
That evening, she drove home. At the age of 35, she had still not found a spouse. This didn’t trouble her, as her harsh childhood under Marta’s “care” had taught her much when the orphanage finally closed down. But a lingering pain still ached her whenever she returned to her work desk. A yellowed letter with a bundle of jigsaw pieces wrapped inside rested there. She tried to hide it out of sight, but she would find herself bringing it back to where it was. She simply missed the sight of it, even if it made her stare contemplatively at the ceiling for hours. Tonight was no different, but she couldn’t shake it off and get back to work like she usually did. Even as she retired to her bed, her eyes were still glued to the ceiling, the latter of which seemingly having separated into jigsaw pieces, with a piece missing in the center.
Meanwhile, somewhere else.
“…yes, I am Akit from the company you speak of.”
The man had his phone between his cheek and shoulder, as most busy officer works do. He dug through his attic, cleaning it of insects and redundant sentiments.
“…our negotiations will take place tomorrow, yes? Excellent.”
He had a rusted clothes hanging rack there, where he hung his old outfits. School uniforms, costumes… and a tiny old jumper. He had worn it as a child, and it was still in good condition, requiring a simple wash to clean the dust. He took the entire rack and tossed it into the pile of things he sought to discard.
“…and my contact’s name is Alice, yes? Eleventh floor?”
A jigsaw piece fell out from the jumper’s front pocket. As he went down, the piece caught his attention.
“Thank you for your help. I look forward to further working with your company.”
He picked it up as he shut off his phone, and held it up to the small ceiling light bulb. He squinted his eyes a bit, seemingly trying to remember something. But after a few minutes, he simply tossed it into the pile of trash and slid down the ladder, giving no second thoughts.
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