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Absolution

Life, Death and Missing Puzzle Pieces

By Brett DufurPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
2

The doorbell rang twice. It echoed off the white tile, the high ceilings, the crystal chandelier in the foyer.

“Hello,” she began, as the door opened. “My name is Paige Alexander.”

“How do you do?” said the woman from inside the house. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Well not exactly, I mean, we have operated in the same circles, one could say,” the woman said, fidgeting with a pair of scissors in her pocket.

“Dear, please come in. If there’s something I can help you with, I’m sure we can get right to the heart of it. Come in, come in.” The thin woman moved with elegance and poise, leading her unexpected guest into a sitting room. “Let me finish up this call to my son in the kitchen. I’ll be right with you,” she trailed off, behind a heavy wooden door.

The visitor sat, upright and tense, on the edge of the Victorian-style couch. Furniture such as this was meant to be comfortable but not too comfortable. It certainly aided in getting a person right to the point.

The matron soon returned from the kitchen. “Please have some tea, darling. Now, how can I be of assistance? Do tell, to what do I owe this visit today?” The woman spoke calmly, maintaining eye contact with the interloper.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I’m stopping by on behalf of the Italian trade magazine Il Enigma,” Paige said.

“Ah, yes, The Puzzler… the ‘voice of the puzzle community’... and you are here, what, to interview me?” Thara’s eyes narrowed.

“Ah, yes, to interview you for the readership of the…,” Paige began.

“You can cut the act now,” Thara said. Her voice was calm, calculated. “You and I both know you are here for something much, much more… sinister.”

“What? How are you so sure I’m not a writer?” the visitor trailed off…

“Your shoes, dear woman!” Thara shook her head. “”Writers wear the most tattered shoes. Old, worn out, comfortable looking.” Thara took a sip of her tea, her pupils large as saucers. “The moment I saw you, I knew you were here to kill me.”

There was a long silence. They both took in what was said, and the absence of a reply.

“But, I will have you know, I called 911 when I was in the kitchen,” Thara continued. “I told the police I was being kidnapped. I’ve stalled long enough, they should be here any minute.”

The visitor, like some newly caged animal, eyed the 7 exits from the room: 3 doorways, 4 windows, first floor. She tried to process this new information.

“I don’t plan to kill you... per se,” Paige finally whispered. “I’m here for something. Something that only you can give me. It’s about Absolution.”

Their eyes locked. This was unexpected.

After a deep sigh in which she failed to regain her composure, Thara spoke. “Absolution is… behind me now. As an artist, I don’t look back. I’m sorry, whatever it is you want, I don’t have it. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

Absolution was considered one of the greatest (and also the last) painting, Thara had done. That had been 11 years ago, before The Great Betrayal. When the things in her life had all quickly come loose, unraveling like an old familiar sweater, from that Wednesday morning in the grocery story parking lot until 2 days later, when the truths had all finally been revealed.

Thara’s emotions were welling deep. She laughed. A nervous laugh. “You are kicking dead man’s bones.”

Absolution was a painting Thara had created, specifically for the Pyramid Puzzle Company, for their Nature Series. As a niche puzzle painter, she had made quite a name for herself for her ability to imbue paintings destined for puzzles, rather than gallery walls, with a certain chimerical quality, often using muted tones that added nuance and complexity to her pieces, as if taunting the puzzlists who spent hours mulling over her creations, who surely thanked her and cursed her under so many breaths.

The painting she named Absolution could best be described as a visually white-washed winter scene, something out of an Ozark morning, with a heavy, grayish fog. Upon first inspection, the painting was simple enough: a foggy background, a simple owl in the foreground, feathers puffed up, staving off winter’s frigid chill. But the owl in the foreground was but a fraction of the puzzle, er, painting’s size. The vast whiteness of the backdrop assumed the larger role, offering a vastness to the piece through creative composition, with that small owl in the front right corner.

But of the three components in the painting, including the small owl and the white vastness, it was the third element that created the heightened sense of immediacy. When studying the whiteness, almost feeling the chill of the winterscape, almost all at once one was struck by the revelation the owl was not alone. There, in full winged glory, like a mist-shrouded Angel of Death, barely and almost imperceptibly materializing from the white ether was a enormous barn owl, wings outstretched like an eagle, coming in fast, talons forward, eyes focused, about to strike the much smaller, unassuming owl in the foreground. For Thara to produce such a sublime painting thusly packed with such tension, such vengeance... spoke to her complexity as a painter.

The painting had created quite a stir upon its release. Most notably due to a contractual dispute with Pyramid Puzzle Corp that had riveted the gossip circles among the puzzling elite. As a result, Thara had left the painting unfinished. She had walked away from completing her Nature Series. And like a ghost that never left, when one looks closely, the eyes of the phantom owl, materializing from the mist, were not finished. The puzzle was incomplete.

The president of Pyramid (and reportedly a jilted ex-lover of Thara), at the end of another failed round of negotiations, had decided to manufacture and distribute the unfinished puzzle, as a snub to Thara. It had created the largest stir in the tight knit gaming community that anyone could remember, with factions vying for justice on both sides. ‘Team Thara’ shirts were even seen at the annual World Puzzle Championships in Brussels.

“Brussels, yes, now I remember you,” Thara said, eyeing her guest. “Brussels, 2008… the championships. You came in first place.”

Paige’s eyes looked to the ground, searching for words. “Yes, that was me.”

“Then you, you disappeared also, didn’t you…?” Thara asked.

“My great unraveling came not too far after your own,” Paige said, eyes trailing off. “Though not as public, of course. Everything fell apart. 9 years ago… it wasn’t until recently I touched puzzles again. More specifically, I sought to finish Absolution.”

Their eyes locked again. Paige continued again, her voice now steady and sure. “Whatever happens, I just want you to know, it really is, a… a masterpiece.”

Outside, blue and red lights began to cast shadows at odd angles into the room, accompanied by the sounds of vehicles stopping abruptly on the street out front, followed by doors being opened frantically.

“They will probably shoot you,” Thara said, sounding most detached from the details of it all. “Taking me hostage in my own house…”

“I didn’t…” Paige started. She felt the scissors in her hand, buried deep in her apron pocket. She blushed with the truth. Her eyes scanned the walls for some words, some shield to proclaim her innocence.

“What is it you want?” Thara asked again, loudly.

“Finish the painting,” Paige said. “For me.” Her voice was resolute. “There is nothing worse than a missing puzzle piece…”

Note to the reader: The world is composed of two kinds of people. Half are always hellbent on blowing the place to pieces. The other half, comprised of people like Paige, lean in to put the pieces back together, often quietly and alone. To restore the moral arc of the universe. To some, it’s just a puzzle. But finding the edge, in life or among scattered puzzle pieces, and making a border out of what was moments before just chaos, of scattered pieces, is at once its own sort of atonement. Finding rebirth in small doses.

“Maybe piece by piece we were just saving ourselves…” Thara trailed off. The fight in her was gone. “You know I haven’t touched that painting, or any paint, since… I gave all that up.”

The phone was ringing. It was a special unit detective, calling from out front. Guns were drawn. He asked her a few questions, including if the aggressor had made any special requests. Thara could hear feel the drumming in her chest of a helicopter drawing near.

“Phthalo blue,” she answered into the phone. “That is what she’s requesting.”

The detective sounded perplexed. She repeated the spelling of it twice. “P-H-T-H-A-L-O blue. Paint. Along with some number 3 and 4 brushes. Please be quick about it… She is armed and quite… crazy.” She hung up and immediately regained her composure.

“You know Paige, maybe you’re my guardian spirit… I’ve often wondered if... when... how… I would ever return to finish Absolution… Some things go unfinished for so long, you expect them to stay that way. Stuck in the in-between.”

In record time, brushes, and a smattering of paints had arrived at the front door, dropped off in a paper bag as an officer behind a riot gear shield quickly backed away.

“If I do this thing for you, what’s in it for me?” Thara asked.

“Maybe we’re just rescuing each other from our stuck places.” Paige pulled the carefully packed puzzle pieces out of a small waterproof container. The handful of cardboard puzzle pieces were from the blank spaces on Absolution, where the owl’s predatorial gaze should be, needed to be.

“You can call off the SWAT team,” Thara chuckled into the phone, eyeing the unassuming puzzle pieces in front of her. “We have reached a truce. It was just a... misunderstanding... between old friends... Your services are no longer required.”

As she hung up, Paige asked, “That was just a touch above and beyond, wasn’t it?”

“Well, you were here to kill me, weren’t you?” Thara quickly reminded her.

Paige shook her head, to shake loose the truth.. “I’m just a puzzlist. Trying to put the pieces…”

“...putting the pieces back together to find some…” Thara added.

“Peace,” Paige said. “Peace by piece.”

And with a few deft paint strokes, the electric blue of the owl’s eyes shone like a haunted beacon. The glint of the apex predator restored, Absolution was complete. It was as though some long forgotten symphony could finally be played. As though some jail cell of the soul had finally opened with a resounding steel clang.

They sat quietly, in the weight of the moment. Each lost in thought to the journey that had brought them here, that had finally climaxed with the last puzzle piece. Something in the universe, thought long lost, had finally been restored.

fiction
2

About the Creator

Brett Dufur

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