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Dante always found something satisfying about finishing a jigsaw puzzle. There was just an accomplished feeling about fitting in that last piece.  Maybe it was the sound of the subtle click, something similar to the feeling of  bursting the first bubble in a sheet of bubble wrap.

Whatever it was the feeling was long gone. The satisfaction had exhausted itself about three months ago after he had finished his 293^rd puzzle. Now as he struggled with the same trial and error it seemed more like a chore rather than an escape.  With no electricity and no more tweets to follow for the past five months,  he had turned to the carved up pictures to occupy the abundance of free time that had been forced upon him. He had tried crosswords, but without the crutch of the internet to cheat with he always ended tossing the damn things out the window.

So he was left sitting at his table in the upstairs room with only the flickering illumination of his hurricane lamp, night in and night out putting the cardboard pieces together.

Tonight was no different.

He sat at his table with a brandy glass sipping whisky, already a little intoxicated, fumbling with the 50,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of San Antonio’s Alamo.  He was about ¾ths way done as midnight was beginning to approach.  He reached to dim his lamp and concede to  fatigue, spilling his glass over the puzzle. The pieces soaked it up and began to fuse together. The remaining pieces were drenched as well and became useless.

Dante stared at the destroyed puzzle and the spilt glass. He couldn’t decide what he was more upset over the fact that he had spent all of yesterday and today working on that puzzle or the fact that the last of his whisky was spilt over the Alamo.

He looked at the puzzle and instantly thought of her.

How just a year ago they had been there, taking a day trip from Houston to San Antonio to see the Spurs play and walk along the river. Drinking margaritas and listening to Mariachi music while taking the tour of the river via boat. How he had brought her to meet his parents the first time. He remembered fumbling with his iPhone trying to get a picture of both of them in front of the Alamo.

He looked at the puzzle again.

"Its too bad it doesn’t look like that anymore." He said with slurred words.

He picked up one of the pieces still soaked with whiskey and waived it over the flame of his lamp, it lit instantly. He looked at it letting it burn his fingers for a second then dropped it on the incomplete puzzle. It set the puzzle on fire. Dante smiled as he looked at the burning portrait.

"That’s better." Dante said chuckling.

His laughter covered his anger, as in one motion he shoved the flaming puzzle out the window and watched it land in the flood waters outside. It was the only light in the city as far as he could tell and slowly it faded away as it sunk into the murky water. Dante pulled his head back inside and fell back into his chair. With a forced smirk on his face he grabbed one of the remaining soaked puzzle pieces and placed it in his mouth. He sucked the whiskey residue from the corner piece and flicked it out the window as well. He continued this until the table was clear.

Fully feeling the effects of whiskey on an empty stomach, he slammed the window shut and stumbled to his bedroom. He carried the dieing lamp with him and set it on his nightstand.  The light waved at him a few times before settling in as well.

He threw his sleeveless shirt off and removed his gym shorts and tried to get comfortable in bed. The window just a few feet away was open and the noises of the nights carried themselves in. The breeze whipping its way through the abandoned city streets, rustling the trees and moving his neighbor’s wind chimes.  The sound of the flood water crashing against the buildings as if the ocean itself was right outside.

And the moans of the dead.

Their sporadic, but endless howl that often drowned out the wind chimes. A symphony of the night that he wished would retire. Night in and night out they thrashed in the water scratching at his door, slamming their disfigured limbs in hopes of getting to him. At first it was unbearable, the constant noise plaguing him and keeping him deprived of sleep. He had tried picking them off with his rifle but he found the gunfire just attracted more of them. He even tried crushing them with cinderblocks but yet again in vain he failed, finding out his aim wasn’t as good as he thought it was.

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