The Jigsaw Puzzle

By J. B. Stamper
(adaptation)

It was on the top shelf, covered with dust and barely visible.

Lisa decided she had to find out what it was. Of all the things in the old shop,
this aroused her curiosity most. She had looked through the old books, toys and
postcards for hours. Nothing had caught her interest. Now the old box, high and
out of reach, intrigued her.

She looked around for the old man who ran the shop. But he had gone into he
back room. She saw a stepladder across the room and brought it over the
bookcase.

Lisa patted her hand along the surface of the top shelf, trying to find the box.
The dirt was thick on the board. Then she touched the box. It was made of
cardboard. The cardboard was cold and soft from being in that place for a long
time. She took the box.

On one of the sides of the box, she could read the words:

500 PIECES

Then she blew away some of the dust that had accumulated on the lid. There
was a musty, dead odor on it. But now, she could read something that was on
the top of the box:

THE STRANGEST
JIGSAW PUZZLE
IN THE WORLD

There were other words underneath that, but they had been rubbed off the
cardboard lid. The big picture on the cover had been curiously damaged. Lisa
could see areas of light and dark. It looked as if the scene might be in a room.
But most of the picture had been scratched of the cardboard box, probably with
a sharp instrument.

The mysterious nature of the jigsaw puzzle made even more appealing to Lisa.
She decided she would buy it. The lid was closed, so she thought that maybe
the puzzle pieces were complete. As she took the box, she smiled to herself. It
was quite a find, she thought she was lucky.
The owner of the store came out of the back room as she was walking towards
the sales desk. He looked curiously at the box when Lisa set it down.

“And where did you find that?” He asked her.

Lisa pointed to where she had found the puzzle. “It was on the top of the
bookcase, you could barely see it from the floor”.

“Well, I have never seen it before, that’s for sure”, he said. “Can’t imagine how
you found it”. Lisa was more pleased that ever with her find. It was like if the
puzzle was waiting there to be discovered by her. She paid the owner of the
store the twenty-five cents he asked for the puzzle and took the box home.

It was late on a Saturday afternoon. Lisa lived alone in a small room in an old
apartment house. She had no plans for that Saturday night. So she decided to
spend the evening working on the puzzle. She stopped at a delicatessen store
and bought some meat, bread and cheese for sandwiches. She would eat while
she put the puzzle together. As soon as she got home and put away the
groceries, Lisa cleaned the big table in the center of the room. She set the box
down on it.

THE STRANGEST
JIGSAW PUZZLE
IN THE WORLD

Lisa read the words again. She wondered what did they mean. How strange a
jigsaw puzzle could be?

The tape that held the lid down was still strong. Lisa took a kitchen knife to open
it. She she took the cover off the box, a musty smell came from the inside. But
the jigsaw pieces all looked in good condition. Lisa picked one up. The color
was faded, but the picture was clear. She could see the shape of a finger in the
piece. It looked like a woman’s finger.

Lisa sat down and started to take out the pieces on the large table. Every time
she could recognize something in one of the pieces. She saw some blonde hair,
a part of a window and a small vase. There was a lot of wood texture in the
pieces, and something that was like wallpaper. Lisa thought that the wallpaper
was similar to something she had been before.
By the time Lisa had all the pieces on the table it was 6:30. She stood up and
made her a sandwich. Her back was hurting from being in the same position for
a long time. It was always the same when she made jigsaw puzzles. But she
could not stop until the puzzle was finished.

She began to the order the pieces of the edge of the puzzle. There were dark
and white pieces, perhaps from a window. As she continued eating her
sandwich, Lisa completed the border. It was like a room. One side of the border
was wallpaper. She was curious about the resemblance to her own wallpaper.
But they were no the same…she thought to herself.

She gathered all the pieces with blue and lilac flowered design. As she fit the
pieces together, it became clear that the wallpaper was identical to the one of
her own room. She took a dance again. It was an exact match.

By now, it was 8:30. She sat on the chair. She looked over her window.
Suddenly, she felt uneasy, alone in her apartment. She pulled the white curtain
over the window. She walked around the room once, trying to think of
something else than finishing the puzzle.

She looked at one of the corners of the puzzle. This corner was very dark. Lisa
noticed that the car in the puzzle seemed to be like the one she had in her room.
Lisa continued to fill in the border towards the middle. There was more
wallpaper to be filled there. Then she look to what appeared to be a window. It
had a half moon in the dark sky. But it was the bottom of the puzzle that began
to bother Lisa. As the prices were there in their place, she saw a picture of a pair
of legs, crossed underneath a table. They were the legs of a young woman. Lisa
passed a her hands over her own legs. Suddenly, she felt something strange, as
it something touched her. But she thought it was her imagination.

The puzzle was now three quarters done. Only the middle remained. Lisa
glanced again at the lid of the puzzle box:

THE STRANGEST
JIGSAW…

She continued. Her back ached. She bought about quitting the puzzle. It scared
her now. She stood up and stretched. Then she looked at the puzzle on the
table. It looked a little different. Lisa was shocked by what she saw. Her body
began to tremble all over.
It was unmistakable. The picture in the puzzle was of her own room. The window
was placed correctly in relation to the table. The bookcase was positioned the
same way too.

Lisa raised her hand to knock the pieces of the puzzle apart. She didn’t want to
finish the strangest puzzle in the world. She didn’t want to find out what was on
the middle of it.

But maybe it wasn’t so bad to know it. Perhaps it was worse to wait and
wonder. She fought against her fear and continued. She began to fill in the
middle of the puzzle. Now, in the puzzle, there was a table, and on the table
there was a puzzle. A puzzle inside the puzzle. She continued.

She pieced together a young woman. It was herself. As she filled the picture, her
own body filled with horror. It was all there in the picture…. The vase with
flowers, her sweater, the wallpaper and her own face full with dread.

The jigsaw puzzle lay there, there were only two pieces left. There were dark
pieces, they belonged to the area of the window. Lisa looked behind her, the
curtain was still covering the window. With relief, she realized that puzzle picture
was then no exactly her room.

Lisa put the last two pieces. It seemed to be like a face. But it was not a human
face. The face on the window was more horrible that anything she had seen
before. Lisa looked at the picture of herself in the puzzle and then back to that
horrible face.

Then she turned around…

The curtain was no longer over the window. The night came through the window
glass. A half moon was there in the dark sky.

Lisa screamed … the face…. It was there, too.

Source: Bridges to Literature, Vol. II, MacDougall Littell, 2002.