2441. Put the pieces together

Ketty had always wanted to attempt a jigsaw; a big one with a thousand pieces. The trouble was that the only bench top big enough to work on was the dining table. It’s not as if Ketty could lay the jigsaw out repeatedly between meals.

Of course Seth, her husband, thought the jigsaw was a wonderful idea. He’d grab any chance he could to eat his meals in an armchair in front of the TV, but Ketty insisted they sit properly at the dining table at least for the evening meal.

That is why Seth gave Ketty a thousand piece jigsaw for her birthday. Ketty was delighted. They would eat their meals in front of the TV until the jigsaw was finished. The jigsaw was of a pretty bridge over a pretty stream banked with pretty flowers – and a couple of ducks.

A month had passed and there were still six pieces left on the table and nine spaces.

“There are pieces missing,” declared Ketty. “And the six remaining pieces don’t seem to belong to the jigsaw.”

“At least we get to eat in front of the tele until the jigsaw is finished,” Seth said. He looked amused and unsurprised.

Anyway, Ketty later cleared the jigsaw off the table. She needed the table space for refreshments and cups of coffee to serve the mourners after they had attended Seth’s funeral.

Poem 17a: It’s pretty

(By way of explanation: I have decided to post on the first of each month a poem in a specific form. Throughout that month, if further poems are created and posted, they will all use that form. The poetic form chosen for January 2016 is the Pantoum. The pantoum originated in Malaysia in the fifteenth-century. The modern pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The third to last and last lines of a pantoum are often the third and first respectively of the opening stanza.)

It’s pretty but there’s no hope
in the picture on a jigsaw box;
patched, thatched, and always a puzzle,
and a couple of ducks on a lake.

In the picture on a jigsaw box
there’s always lots and lots of flowers,
and a couple of ducks on a lake
with lots and lots of babies.

There’s always lots and lots of flowers
and those inside the house
with lots and lots of babies,
can’t feed them all.

And those inside the house,
they’ve gone to pieces,
can’t feed them all
in bits and pieces.

They’ve gone to pieces,
jigsawed into shape
in bits and pieces,
disintegrated and broken.

Jigsawed into shape,
patched, thatched, and always a puzzle,
disintegrated and broken.
It’s pretty, but there’s no hope.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.

554. Jigsaw puzzle

Gladys loved to do jigsaws. She had a large table in her lounge reserved especially for jigsaws.

She bought a huge jigsaw. It was of graceful white swans swimming. It was thousands of pieces. It took her two months to do.

There was a piece missing. Angrily she threw the whole thing in the trash, including the box.

If she had read the box, she would have noticed something: If yours is the jigsaw with the one piece missing (and the boxes are numbered) you have won a $50,000 BMW! You must tell us the number on the box, and describe the missing piece.