Free Imperfect Strangers by David Staniforth

splintered chicken bones. Good, I think, one less mutt to crap on the pavement. A glimmer of pale-yellow light presses against the ashen clouds. I wonder if the light will break through, or are the clouds strong enough to hold it back. Maybe today will be a turning point. Maybe not. If this day gives me no hope at all, then tomorrow I will go to bed, stay there, and slowly unwind.
    The sock drawer is empty. I close it and turn to the pile of unwashed clothes. Kneeling before the pile, raising socks in turn to my nose, I discard the worst smelling into a separate pile. The least stinking are the pair I wore yesterday, and though the big toe of my right foot pokes through a gaping hole, I settle for them.
    Down in the front room – I refuse to call it living room – following the usual routine, I open the cover of the topmost book from a pile of five. The library stamp inside tells me I have three more days to absorb the text. I select the one I’ve not yet read – ‘One Hundred Uses for Pieces of String’ – and slip it into my workbag as I make my way into the kitchen. I then take out my lunch box and my dead father’s tartan flask – his fishing flask (the one and only thing I have never returned to the sideboard). I put an empty sandwich bag into the lunch box, throwing the used one towards the bin, and put the box into my bag. I tip the dregs of tea from the flask into the sink and flick on the kettle. I’m like a robot, going through the exact same thing, each and every day. Programmed. Stuck in a rut. Wind the clock up, check the time, wake up and turn it off. Wind the clock up, set the time...
    A plastic clacking sound comes from the back door. Sure enough , when I look down Mrs Seaton’s head is pushing the clear plastic flap against the house-brick that I place there to prevent her daytime entry. When I’m out at work – no problem – she can come in and go out as often or as little as she likes, but when I’m sleeping, she’s out. The instant I push the brick aside, Mrs Seaton slinks through and scampers into the room, her tail erect. She stands before me, looking up, mewing loudly.
    “Come to wish me happy birthday, have you?” I pick up the parcel from the counter : the parcel I wrapped for myself, yesterday, in red paper with blue and yellow balloons. I rip the paper away and unwrap the cellophane from a jigsaw box as I move from the kitchen to the front room. “Did those nasty doggies choke yet?”
    Mrs Seaton mews her reply as I settle onto the sofa. I push the food cartons to the floor, then sitting before the coffee table, lift the lid from the box and begin extracting edging pieces. Consulting the lid, pushing the fragments of blue-sky to one side, I start at the bottom. That part of the picture has lots of small detail. Small details always provide a good start, and the bottom of this puzzle has white water rushing over moss-skirted rocks . There’s an interesting mix of turbulence. Referring to the lid – an action mother would have considered cheating – the bottom edge soon grows. The mantle clock counts the passing moments with a pounding tick. Occasionally Mrs Seaton reaches up and paws the pieces as I shuffle them around each other.
    “No, silly,” I tell her, tapping her paw in mock chastisement. “That’s a piece of sky. Mother was much better at these than you. She’d have done the sides too by now.” Life is like a jigsaw. She’d say things like that on her better days, on the not-so-bad days, the days when she would actually talk to me. Sort the pieces, Keith, she’d say. Put them in the correct order; take them one at a time, and the rest will fall easily into place.
    Yes, life is a bit like a jigsaw. But you don’t get a picture to follow as an example, and the pieces won’t always fit where you’d like them to fit.
    “Ah, there it is, hiding amongst these fragments of trees.” I see the man’s hands on one piece, a section of the willow basket on another, and