Your Little Puzzlebox

You think how lovely your fire would be when you’ll arrive home that night, out of cold streets where the icy rain makes your face feel like its splintering. You thought it’d be a little warmer; the thin gloves you bought on Monday don’t work at all. The evening is painted in gloomy colours and everyone avoids your eyes.

At home, you are sound with your quaint little puzzle-box, the one your brother left you in his last visit, the one made of pine-wood that still smelt of the forest it came from. You remember telling him that you’ll visit it one day, and bury the box there once you’ve solved it, after all your troubles are over.

The fire is now lit and you think it’s burning like a star - and then you’re reminded stars end, and it makes you think of tomorrow: another cold day. You shut the windows, close the blinds, and turn your wireless off. By candlelight at your tiny desk, with the papers of eviction moved away to rest on your sagging couch, you go back to the puzzle and twist its sides sideways and up. You like the quiet: it is truly blissful without the phone screaming at you anymore.

At this turn you hear a chink, and hope that this might be it. Your heart thumps, then your chest sinks, for that wasn’t it. The puzzle got stuck. It doesn’t open; but you push on. Seven a.m. comes and goes, and so does eight and nine. The dong of the bell in the church tower hums ten in the distance. Perhaps it’s time to go to bed and leave it another day.

Sweat trickles down your brow from the thick heat, and it bothers you. Grumpily, you open a window ajar but keep the blinds shut. You forgot how to extinguish the fire any other way. The candle is good for light though, however a twinge in your eyes reminds you that they can only try so hard.

Maybe you should leave it another day.

Before you know it’s the witching hour.

Yes, it’s for another day.

Author's Note

My first real try at second-person :)