054
Jigsaw Puzzle;
and medley

With a carillon of lyrics and melody through my head, clear as a bell like tickertape, I'm back; aware, again.

there's a tramp
sitting on the door step
trying to waste his time ...

I'm actually sitting on a tangled grass roadside verge; but otherwise, the words fit. My pack, beside me in the brambles, tells me that it's seen happier, more self-respectful times. I guess I've been away a long time, pack.

... he's a
walking clothes line ...

Looking down at myself, that too seems fair enough. A boiler suit, once bottle green, now sun-faded to khaki; threadbare, torn at both knees, wrinkled and stretched at every wear-point. Boots scuffed white; deep scars in the fabric, heels worn right down, hardly any tread, sole-plate screws loose. And filthy; grime in the lines of my hands, finger nails black. I don't smell too pleasant, either; nothing clear-cut or obvious, but a definite scent of neglect.

I look as though I've come fresh from prolonged, non-stop heavy combat; so I have, perhaps, but the battlefield was within, this time. Not the familiar rock and dust terrains, nor this placid corner of Dorset, but a deep, seething, viscid virgin mental jungle of my own.

The memories are all there, but mostly out of sequence. The beginning and end are clear enough, but the space between is a jigsaw puzzle. The other, whoever's been living in here while I was off fighting house-to-house in another part of my head, obviously didn't get to keep the memories when he left ... but they're filed in alphabetic order, not chronological, and don't connect. I pull them out, one at a time, like odd socks from the wash.

... oh, I was born between the signs,
got some times ...

Back, back, reach back to the beginning; back to the point where sensible serial memories left off ...

... lose your dreams,
and you might lose your mind
ain't life unkind ...

... sitting in the house. I still knew where I was, then, but elsewhere was rushing in fast; I knew that, too, and was packing to meet it - wasn't I, pack? You and me, pack; we've been places. I guess I've been away a long time; I'm glad you waited for me. I knew elsewhere was coming, but I didn't know what it was like and it scared the shit out of me. I must have been a long way into the breakdown by then, though I didn't know it ... but leave that, for now.

oh, hold me ...

I sat there, packing and repacking my Bergen, feeling incredibly serene and answering anyone who asked: "I'm fine, just fine; why?"

... i need ev'rybody ...

(And so many people did ask; friend and foe alike, they swam into view and asked, listened doubtfully to the answer, then swam away again.)

... hold me while i look around ...

To one side, watching, careful and anxious as Autumn deepened, my wife. Quietly, methodically, without fuss or emphasis, in matter-of-fact loyalty beyond the call of duty, packing a Bergen of her own. Looking back, a few years down the road from now, I'll realise that our marriage was over by then; but the care and the loyalty remained.

... railroad,
where we gonna go today?
Never wanna go where you take me but
You always get your way ...

And the end, apparently, is here on a grass-banked Dorset roadside verge, beneath a hedge, somewhere between Piddle Trenthide and Toller Porcorum. Or is this just another memory that will never connect, filed away in a shoebox as soon as I've finished living it? There was no clear-cut beginning, probably there's no clear-cut end ... many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.

... and yet, I feel obscurely certain that I will look back to the crystal clarity of this moment and say "yes, that's when I knew the end of the tunnel would happen."

In the end is the beginning ... my wife still sits to one side, watching a flock of birds wheel and dive. She is neat and clean, compared to me, but shows the strain of months (how many months?) on the road with a stranger. How much has she given up? What has loyalty cost her? Probably a great deal; her career is (was) dependent on constantly maintained contacts. I clear my throat, and she turns to me. "Well," I say "should we go home?" Her eyes widen, briefly (how long has it been, since she heard me say anything coherent?), but her voice is calm and level as her head takes a quizzical tilt to one side: "If you like. Or we can stay here a while. Or we can think about it. See how you feel; there's a whole summer ahead."

A whole summer; so we've come through a winter since my last reliable memory. Flipping through the pile of odd socks, I find snow scenes and frosted breath.

... I'm sitting here on the floor,
jus' tryin' to solve
a little jigsaw puzzle,
before it rains any more ...

I nod, uncertainly. "A short while, maybe. My memory's a mess; I'll need to sort it out a bit." She nods, in return, and hefts her pack.