A Curious Puzzle

The door ajar, a puzzle laid at the child’s feet. It was made of several geometric shapes- not diamonds or squares, but animals, sneaky, snake-like, rattling around the hexagon of empty wood, slithering and almost fitting inside but not quite. Her mother watched as the child rotated the shapes, took them out, put them back. The child stormed out in a huff, scratching her head, consumed in thought, trying to imagine a way to somehow orient these pieces. The mother peaked through the door, sat on the floor in the place where the child had left an imprint on the carpet from sitting for so long. She marveled at the mahogany pieces, rich and grainy. It seemed that they were trying to tell a story. Rotate me this way, they cried out, and you’ll be led down a path of daisy-studded meadows, but turn me around and a cave shall appear, blocking the view of the mountains, the sky darkening, thundering. Hearing the child’s footsteps get louder, she scurried out and watched the child resume her work. Her mother felt the movement of the pieces on the floor more than she saw them, and she waited, listening, for the girl to listen to her heart and not her head, for a chicken can move around with its head cut off and not its heart, after all, realizing that one must do and not think, and her child’s eyes sparkled, then, glittering with possibility. Pieces clicked and clattered, sliding into place. The wind rustled the trees, the sun was shining, the cave just an illusion. But when the puzzle was solved, the child did not make any noise. There was no visible change on her face, no indication that the hours of effort put forth had come to fruition. With a nod, the child began work on the second solution.

Following her feet, the mother left to take out a puzzle of her own.