Puzzles and Lies, Part 1

 Debra, my wife got me hooked on doing puzzles years ago, she thought it would be good for my ageing mind and improve my memory. While long story short, I’m hooked. I complete at least one 1000 piece puzzle every week. Some of them I keep, you know by gluing them and hanging on the wall. I mount mine in nice frames, I even sign and date them sometimes.

Debra and I have been married 25 years, with no children on account of an accident Debra was involved in back in high school. A drunk driver plowed through the fence in their backyard and into the above ground pool, Debra was unfortunately in the pool closest to the entry point of the car. She spent 2 weeks, 3 operations, and ended up with a completely destroyed uterus, and needing a hysterectomy at the age of 17. 

Debra has been away with work for about two months now, she should be home any week now, we hope she’s an engineer with a large oil company, currently working in South America. She’s been sending me these fantastic custom made puzzles from the village she’s staying in. The latest puzzle a 1000 piece picture of her standing in front of the giant Jesus statue in Rio De Janeiro (Christ the Redeemer). God, she’s beautiful. 

After eating supper and cleaning up the kitchen, I grab a cold beer from the fridge and sit down to start sorting the puzzle. I do my puzzles a little bit different than most, (a lot different I guess). I don’t do the usual building of the border, I find it actually slows me down looking for all those edge pieces. So I just start by sorting the pieces by the usual color groups and start building right away, it all gets done and in the end, it saves time, can’t complain.

This one struck me as a little odd as some pieces had something on the backs of them. Not sure what it was, but I will have to finish building it to flip it over to see. Maybe that’s the special surprise she mentioned on the box it was shipped in, “Hey Matt, wish I was there, you will find this puzzle has a special sullies for you, love Deb”. As I continue to build the puzzle I become more and more intrigued and excited to see what’s on the back.

I finish the puzzle in a record day and a half. The little thumbnail illustration on the box definitely didn’t do the puzzle any justice. It’s stunning, and Debra is so beautiful. I take a couple pictures with my phone and immediately text her to show her it’s all done, and to thank her again.  She is so excited, she Texts back fairly quickly asking if I got the message yet. In my excitement, I almost forgot.  I quickly sign and date, then apply the glue to the top side of the puzzle. It will take about an hour before I will be able to flip it over, so while it dries I head out to buy a new frame to mount it. 

I run into my best friend at the mall. Mike comes up to me, we hug, as we always do. He asks how I’m doing with Debra away so long. I tell him how it is, then about the puzzle and show him a picture of it. He’s amazed at it, “ looks wonderful, too bad you couldn’t go with her this trip like last time” he said. He then gets this weird look on his face, “the outfit she’s wearing in the picture” he says, he tells me he thought he saw her last week in Fredericton in that same outfit. but he wasn’t close enough to yell out her name or get a real good look. We laugh about it, because she’s a simple dresser, like a simple look, does most of her shopping at Wal-Mart. He tells me he’s meeting someone and has to go, we make plans for the weekend, and he goes his way and I go into the picture and framing store to pick out the perfect frame. 

When I get home I unpack the frame and take the back of it to get it ready for the puzzle. The puzzle is now dry and I proceed to flip it over. But stop, and I decide to call Debra to FaceTime with her while I flip it. Funny, she’s always home at this time of night. She must have gotten hung up at work. I decide to flip it over by myself. I completely lose my breath when I read the message on the back. It’s written in bright red ink and conveys a message obviously other than what Debra intended. She didn’t say this, not at all. 

“Don’t trust her She’s lying 🙁” 

Why? What the hell is this? Is this what her surprise is?  I can’t imagine, I try to call her again, but no answer. Where is Debra, and what the hell is this?

With more questions than answers, I teach for a beer, but decide I need something stronger, and fix myself a couple stiff Jack and ginger ale, which make me feel much better. Since I need to get some sleep, I have an early morning at the office, I hop in the shower, and then climb into bed and fall as keep quickly due to the  Jack. 

The alarm goes off at 6:00 am, I get up and check my phone, Debra hasn’t texted or tried to call, must be some emergency at the plant. I text her “we need to talk later, it’s important” and head to grab a coffee. I drink my coffee while standing looking at the writing on the back of the puzzle, trying to figure out what it means. With even more questions about what it means and who did this? Since it was a custom order, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get answers.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2: Coming soon  

The Evil Christmas Elf: Part 1

PART 1:

Christmas is a fun time of year, especially for the kids. But for some, it’s filled with sadness, fear and dread. Tommy is one of those boys who knows all too well the evil of Christmas. Tommy is now 35 years old, but will never forget when at only 6 years old, he sadly stopped believing in Santa, or not to mention the dammed elf on the shelf. 

It all started out, as usual, a great Christmas season, lots of chocolate, candy, and presents starting to appear wrapped under the Christmas tree, the house smelled like Christmas. Tommy’s mom even got the family an elf on the shelf. Tommy and his younger sister Jessica who was only 3 years old at the time was so excited at first to see the joyful ways the Elf moved from room to room doing things around the house every night. They couldn’t wait to get out of bed to see what/where the Elf would be. The funny ways the Elf would be hiding in the fridge, the cereal box, he was even surrounded with chocolate and marshmallows one morning brushing his teeth with Dad’s toothbrush. Tommy and Jessica laughed so hard that morning. 

Mom and Dad used to fight from time to time about the usual things, like money and Dad’s drinking, so when the Elf started to do things a little mischievously like sitting in the nativity scene. At first glance it was funny, then you realized the Elf was sitting in the crib where Jesus lays, and on the floor in front of the fireplace was the Jesus porcelain figure broken into a million pieces, or at least seemed like that many. Of course, Mom and Dad blamed each other. Mom seemed to win that argument since everyone knew Dad had too much rum and eggnog the night before. 

Tommy and Jessica started to no longer want to look for the elf in the morning, especially after the morning it appeared the elf had hung all Jessica’s Barbies from the ceiling fan in the living room. The elf was sitting under them just watching with a piece of string tied like a noose. Just like the ones wrapped around the Barbie’s necks. Both Tommy and Jessica had nightmares that night. Mom and Dad’s fighting got worse that day, again both blaming each other. 

Tommy was the first to realize the elf was getting worse, and it seemed linked to their fighting parents, the more they argued the worse the elf would be. He tried so hard to convince his mom, but she just put it off as a scared little boy trying to make delve of the things he is seeing the elf do. Things continued to get worse, the fighting worse until just a week before Christmas, Tommy’s mom told his Dad to get out and stay at a friend’s house. Tommy and Jessica, and especially mom thought the elf thing would be done and over. Mom had taken the elf and moved it to a drawer beside the fireplace and with Dad no longer there, everyone woke up on that cold rainy dark morning in anticipation of a great day of Christmas celebration and preparing for the holiday now just 5 days away. 

To their surprise, they found the elf sitting on the kitchen counter with a family picture of all four of them, and a knife in the elf’s hands stabbing Mom’s eye. There was even a little bit of blood on the knife and picture, must have been ketchup but it looked so scary. Mom immediately swept the whole disturbing mess into the trash and called Dad to yell at him, she assumed he stopped by in the night to set this up and scare her and the kids. Of course, he denied everything. Mom called the police and reported him, changed the locks and explained Dad wouldn’t be spending Christmas with them, but Mom promised them they would have a great Christmas.

Assuming that was that as the trash had gone out the night before, when they woke up the next morning, Jessica was screaming so loud. When Tommy and Mom ran into her room, the Elf was sitting on one of her pillows beside her head, holding a utility knife, the kind Dad has in his toolbox. There was blood on the pillow, knife, and Jessica had a cut on her cheek that was still bleeding. After a trip to the hospital, 6 stitches, and the police being called again on Dad, this was becoming the worst Christmas ever for Tommy and Jessica and their Mom. 

The police had taken the elf with them after their investigation, it was over, or so everyone thought. When they woke up a couple of mornings later, now Christmas Eve, the elf was back and to Tommy’s horror this time Mom was dead. Cut up in pieces and spread throughout the house in a bloody mess something like out of Friday the 13th. The elf sitting beside Mom’s head with a saw, also from Dad’s toolbox. Tommy knew it wasn’t dad that did this but was this evil doll. 

Tommy called 911 and kept his sister in her room so she couldn’t see anything until the police showed up with their Nanny to take them to her house. The police questioned Tommy about the saw and the elf, and all the fighting his parents did. Of course, the police didn’t believe it was the elf doing this, and the thing that killed his Mom, so Tommy knew he had to do something. He quickly grabbed the elf from the police officer holding it and started to rip it apart, he pulled off the head, threw it on the floor and stomped on it feeling it break under his foot. He then pulled off the arms and legs, throwing stuffing everywhere, some of it falling into the pools of Mom’s blood on the floor.

It was all over, Tommy and Jessica had a somewhat Christmas with Nanny and Grampy, but Christmas will never be the same. 

Now at 35 years old, Tommy had kids of his own Sally, 8 and David, 5. Christmas was always a difficult time. Aunt Jessica spent every Christmas with them and had just arrived to spend the week with armloads of Christmas presents. Everyone was so excited on Christmas Eve morning. They all got up, had breakfast then headed downstairs to the family room to see the Christmas tree and play some video games. That’s when Tommy saw it, and it scared him to death, the broken ornament sitting on the floor. It was a glass ball with a picture of his Mom inside it. On the floor around the broken pieces were some dolls stuffing with dried blood on it. He knew someday the elf would be back.