98. Puzzle
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Danny never liked puzzles.
It was just a simple cube that he'd received for his birthday a few months ago. It was a childish game that he was sure devised to keep children quiet and busy. It resided in his room, but unlike Jazz had predicted it wasn't gathering dust or lost in some dark recess of his. It was in brood view and everyday he'd pick that colorful cube off his desk and begin to work at it.
And it frustrated him, surely it had to be possessed or made by a truly evil force. Because no matter how close you got something wasn't right, so you had to jumble it up in order to make it better. Inevitably bringing you back to where it seemed you started. Yes, the cube had had many run ins with the wall across from his bed.
These things weren't solvable, they must've been made for torture devices.
It figured, that had to be why Sam had purchased him a Rubik's cube. She must've just wanted him to suffer with the cube, knowing that in giving it to him he'd refuse to admit defeat. Knowing he'd spend every free hour trying to get those colors to all be in their designated places. He'd seen her watching him with it before, that glint in her eye, that smile on her face.
Danny looked at it his eyes bearing through it, Sam hadn't bought it for his pleasure. She tricked him using psychology, she had to. With an annoyed groan he tossed it against his wall, for the millionth time it bounced off and landed in floor. Just where he could see it.
Danny turned his head away and picked up the CD she'd also bought for him. If he needed something stimulating, music was much more effective and much less frustrated. But as he went to insert the disc into his CD player his eyes wandered over to the abandoned puzzle lying on the floor waiting for him to come back for it.
The complexity of it just made his mind go reeling and he immediately dropped the CD and picked it up apologetically. How could something so small be this difficult? It was impossible, nothing that simple was that hard. It was just a small multi colored cube that could shift around in a few different ways.
It was nothing more than a black cube with stickers on it. And as much as he wanted to peel them off, he knew he'd get impatient with taking the easy way out. This cube was mocking him, making him feel like a failure, when Tucker could solve his own so easily. Was there a manual or secret to it, and he just wasn't informed? With a smirk Danny picked up the card Sam had placed with the cube.
"Enigmas are fun aren't they? Have fun Danny, just clear your mind."
He put the piece of paper back on his desk and plopped onto his bed, lying flat on his stomach. In front of him he held the cube, and slowly his hands began to work.
Moving one row up, another down, this one vertically and the next one horizontally. Red, red, orange, white, green, white. Up down, red, sideways, yellow, green. Twist, spin, turn. Danny was completely focused and quiet for a good five minutes before absent thoughts began to crowd through his mind.
Simple things at first. How many times he caught a ghost today. What he was going to do tomorrow. What he was going to eat tonight. Simple mundane things just drifted by, he hardly gave them thought.
He pondered the name clueless and realized he didn't get it and thought it didn't fit him all too well. Then he started wondering about Tucker's beret, he realized he had no idea why his friend wore that thing. Or how many times he washed it.
Then his mind wandered over to that mischievous little Sam, the one who started this all. Her and her cube of problems. What on Earth possessed the goth to purchase it? It couldn't be just to drive him insane, it wouldn't, it wasn't. She always was a bit of a mystery herself, keeping things secret and obscure.
It kind of reminded him of the puzzle, just when everything seems to fall in line there's always those few pieces that are misplaced, so then you just have to start over again. The more he thought about it the truer it held for reality. Like his ghost half, Jazz collected so much information on it, only to see him defy one small detail making her toss out thousands of theories.
Twist, spin, turn. Or Sam, she was just as complicated. At first he'd though he had the pieces. She was a girl, a best friend, and an individual. But the more he worked at it the more he realized there was a lot more means to sort her out. She liked to make herself seem more straight forward to people that didn't know her.
Like the first time he picked up the cube. It seemed so simple, a few spins, a few turns and it should be solved. But there was more, even a method perhaps. But what, what made them so enigmatic? And more importantly why? Sure a Rubik's Cube could very well just purely be for killing time.
But what about Sam? Why did Tucker understand the cube better than he did, and better yet why does he seem to understand Sam better then he does? Danny blinked pausing his mechanical movements, something was in the way. He was thinking to logically about the cube and not of Sam.
Was that it? Was he placing too much importance on the simpler items and completely missing everything else. Was it because he was denying his own feelings and becoming blind? Danny's eyes went wide as the most bluntly obvious thing smacked him upside his head. Suddenly clueless seemed like the most perfect name for him.
Twist, spin, turn.
Danny suddenly grew giddy his eyes shinning and hopeful, he had something to tell her now. If it had been any more obvious he was sure it would have blinded him. In a second the raven haired teen was off his bed and out the window on flight to his best friend's house. And lying placidly on his bed was a solved Rubik's Cube.
But then again, just because Danny didn't like puzzles, didn't mean that he wasn't good at them.
It's my birthday tomorrow, so this is my early birthday present from me to you...no matter how little sense that may make. Let me tell you all something, Rubik's Cubes are manufacture by pure evil itself, and you all know it.
