My sister and I sent my father a 5,000-piece puzzle for Father’s Day in Quarantine. We considered sending him another puzzle for his birthday shortly after but our mother asked us not to. He bought the others himself, to fill the time between Zoom meetings and meals. They sit on the dining table while they are being built.
So far there has been:
Spring in Santorini (2,000 pieces—Castorland).
- A flower-filled café terrace overlooks the famous blue-topped white buildings; in the distance, the sea; as the details blur the brush-strokes run together.
- This is the one that started it all, well before the quarantine. It was the memory of watching my father in his study agonizing over the sky and the rocks that revealed to us the answer to all future presents from that point onwards.
Big Ben & The London Skyline (1,000 pieces—Ravensburger).
- Big Ben and the London Eye feature prominently, with the Shard far in the background. It is evening and purple clouds loom over strangely empty streets; it will clearly rain soon.
- He didn’t miss being able to go into London, exactly, just the possibility.
Rialto Bridge, Grand Canal, Venice (1,000 pieces—Jumbo).
- A wintry day in Venice, tourists unbothered and filling the bridge, tour boats and the gondola in the foreground of the image.
- My parents cancelled two trips, including one to attend my brother’s wedding in Australia.
Times Square (1,000 pieces—Bull Qihan Toys).
- The iconic New York street, over-saturated and dark. All that stands out are the taxis and billboards.
- Shiny puzzle pieces that were all the same shape and size meant my father didn’t buy any more puzzles from this company afterwards. He stuck to Ravensburger.
Harry Potter Characters (1,000 pieces—Ravensburger).
- A collage of movie stills of the heroes and villains from the movie series, assembled and oriented to all face the puzzle-assembler.
- Too easy.
Battle on High Sea (5,000 pieces—Ravensburger).
- Mist and smoke from crashing waves and fired cannonballs; at least two ships are on fire and there are as many men in the water and in lifeboats as on the ships themselves.
- He didn’t have enough cardboard to lay underneath the puzzle for a makeshift puzzle mat, and the puzzle almost covered the entire dining table.
- He later bought a puzzle mat made out of felt that proved to be the wrong size. The replacement capped out at a potential for 2,500 pieces, perhaps at my mother’s behest.
- This one took him two months.
Colmar, France (500 pieces—Ravensburger).
- A bike leans against the railing in front of brightly-coloured houses: pink, blue, yellow, orange. The flowers are starting to bloom.
- Normally he wouldn’t have bothered with such a small puzzle, but I suspect this was all he was allowed by my mother in the wake of the Battle on The High Sea, and her losing the dining table for a month.
Raphael’s The School of Athens (2,000 pieces—Ravensburger).
- A brighter, more colourful version of the fresco; Plato and Aristotle hold court, surrounded by philosophers of every ilk.
- He doesn’t remember this one.
Paris Romance (1,500 pieces—Ravensburger).
- Evening draws in at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. A pink haze envelops everything and the golden light from the streetlamps illuminates the empty, waiting benches and the flowers all in bloom.
- Like many others this year, my parents celebrated their birthdays and their wedding anniversary at home.
Van Gogh: The Starry Night (1,500 pieces—Ravensburger).
- Swirls and flecks and dabs of paint seem random and each puzzle piece looks almost identical; piece-by-piece they slowly reveal that famous night-time village scene.
- He started this puzzle just before London moved to a Tier 2 alert in October, the day my wife and I moved out of our flat, and in with my parents.
Spring in Santorini (2,000 pieces—Castorland). Solved 2020.
- He re-discovered this one in a box they hadn’t unpacked after the move in 2019 from Chicago to England. This will be his next puzzle, and the first puzzle he has ever made more than once.
When a puzzle is done, my father stands back, takes a sip of coffee, sometimes takes a photo, and then takes it apart and puts it back in the box. He waits a few days before starting the next one.
Samuel Barker (website, medium) is a deaf Australian who spends far too much time not writing for someone who tells people that he is a writer. He also occasionally acts in things.
Image based on Jigsaw Puzzle by Markus under a CC BY-NC-SA license, and released under the same license.