It is often a complaint of writers everywhere, that writer’s block is a serious impediment to any progress they could hope to make. When writers far and wide have been afflicted by this irksome malady, how could one such as me hope to escape its clutches?

Writing a themed piece for a journal is a daunting task. It is almost as if the mere mention of ‘themed writing’ freezes the gears of my mind and obstructs it from thinking any further.

But all hope was not lost; for a closer inspection of the world around us rewards one with ample content to scrawl for ‘Mosaic’. It is in this manner that this piece was born, my mind unyielding but my eyes receptive to even a glimpse of a mosaic. I stood in front of a mirror hoping to see something I had not seen before. Lo and behold! I was the mosaic.

There were pieces of me that shone the brightest; pieces I had salvaged from some happy memory of long ago, some from a silly joke I had created entirely from scratch, and some I had inherited; for joy, just like grief, is also passed down as a legacy.

Then there were the pieces that had fallen off, and were chipped at the edges, their shine dulled a bit. These were reminders of darker times, of stormier days and sullen nights, of all the moments my mind was not really my own. But these rarities aside (for they were special pieces), there were those that formed the bulk of the mosaic. The ones that gave it shape, colour and form.

These, I discovered, were far too varied to be described in a sentence, but as I claim to be a writer, I shall attempt to do it some justice.

Some pieces, I saw, were memories of mundane moments: sitting in the winter sun with my dog at my feet and a fruit in my hand; eating the last of my favourite dish straight from the bowl; dancing to frivolous music alone in my room at midnight, my sister too exasperated to speak; climbing to the top of a hill, my body aching from the effort but my heart radiant with joy.

Yet others were pieces that weren’t entirely my own: they were gifts, or shared treasures that were as much someone else’s as they were mine. These were moments we had shared together; perhaps one of complete trust as we locked eyes, or one of common pain, the grief affecting both our lives forever. The gifts I had received were bits and shards they had broken off and handed to me, in an unmatched display of love and care.

A few were ones I realised were ugly or unsightly once, but now were the critical tiles of contrast, without which the shiny and shimmery ones would not have stood out as much.

I have now described all but one group of mosaic pieces that reflected at me from the mirror. It is not because there are some terrible secrets I wish to hide, nor some great mystery. You see, these last pieces were nebulous bits of fog, not fully formed yet, but splitting light as a crystal would. These pieces stood for all my dreams, the ones at night and the ones you see in a boring lecture at 11A.M. These were the pieces of my future. These stood for all that will be, and all that could be. Thus, it seems the mosaic that I am is still a work in progress. Perhaps we shall see what becomes of it someday. I can only hope it is a magnificent one.

As I turned to go, I realised I had overlooked the biggest truth of them all:

If a mosaic is to be made, something needs to be broken first. If nothing breaks, there shall be no pieces to shape the mosaic from.