The short story "The Puzzle Knot."

Puzzle knot

This morning I was meant to listen to music while I was eating coffee, but as soon as the pickpocket took out my headphones, I realized that there was a problem today - the headphone strap was so tangled up like a stir-fry. I lifted it up and looked like I found the hardest math puzzle in the world.

"Seriously... are you playing this tangled?" I complained, wearing a headphone that was still like it was laughing at me in my heart.

I put it on the coffee table, seriously, as if to launch a battle, and I knew it wasn't just about fixing the strings, it was like a challenge that, if it wasn't successful, I wouldn't have a song all day.

I looked at the little knot that didn't seem complicated at first, but the longer I stared at it, the more it looked like it was hiding a maze in itself. I felt like someone was watching a Thriller movie. The scene where the hero was trying to remove the bomb ring. Counting down, what's in my head right now is, if I don't fix it now, in ten minutes I have to go out to work. The music on the bus must be bye-bye.

I started at the end of the jack first, tried to hold the strings slowly, but pulled the wrong position, it got tighter. I made a face like "hey, it's playing me." This feeling is like when we accidentally say something wrong to our ex and try to fix it, but the more you say it, the more messy it is.

Okay...Calm down, don't be dashing. I told myself, put the earphone cable on the table, try to make it spread out, like looking at an intricate map to plan a strategy.

I scanned each knot point by point, which has three main blocks - the middle knot is the largest, tightened like a rubber band with a curry bag, and the side knot is smaller, but without loosening the small knot, there is no way to touch the big knot.

I grabbed the left earphone cable, rubbed it slowly, calmly, tried to spin the trail it used to twist back, the plastic sound was abrasive with my fingers, but I felt like a beating heart.

No, it's still a little stale, like it's laughing at me in his heart, "Stupid."

I turned left and looked right, and I saw a paper clip on my desk. Okay, this job was to play. I bent the clip into a small stick and poked it into a knot that looked so tight that my empty hands couldn't do anything.

I felt like a bomb detector who needed a special tool, gently pressed, gently rotated, slowly loosened the strings, and I almost exclaimed when they actually moved.

"Hey, it's out. First knot!" I raised my hand, and I was glad if anyone heard that I was crazy, but... forget it.

The first knot is out, but the second knot is strangely tangled, like it has its own intelligence that levels it up to challenge me, I'm trying to pull it left, right, but I can't pull it, or it's going to twist harder.

Now it's like playing the last Boss Fight game requires the utmost concentration or a stupid loss.

I was spinning my way, rubbing my strings back a little bit, like I was meditating, my hands were shaking a little bit because of the pressure - I was getting late for work. If I didn't finish, I would probably be able to listen to Boy Peacemaker's bed on the bus.

And it really loosened! The second knot came off as easily as I knew I was threatening to throw it in the trash.

The last knot is in the middle, huh... this is the boss, it looks the tightest, I take a long sigh before I do it, like a boxer against Final Fight.

I posed a rookie, grabbed the ends of the two wires and turned them slowly, and the sound was satirical in each turn, and I felt like, hey, this is going to unwind!

But then suddenly it's more locked...

"Why are you adding a new knot?" I swearing softly. It's like we're close to winning, but the game has a secret round added.

I hung up, got in the water, meditated, or I would be hot to throw it away.

Back and sitting, I tried a new way, "loosen it layer by layer," and I looked for which part was the main knot puller, and I started loosening it from a small loop, and it was like solving a puzzle - I flirted with my index finger and thumb, and it looked as soft as a dancer, until the small loop came out, and the big loop began to loosen.

My hands slowly rotate the strings. My index finger and thumb work in a very smooth way. Every time they move, I feel like someone has successfully removed the vault door mechanism.

The room was so quiet that I heard my heart, and now there was only one loop that was strapped, and I took a paper clip, and it was loosened millimeters at a time.

"Come on, it's close," I muttered to myself.

At that moment I barely blinked, and it was the most excruciating moment, like in a movie where the protagonist had to cut a red or blue cord and hope to explode.

And then it's "Poke!" - the headphones loosen up in full with no knots left!

I raised my earphone like a man lifting the World Champion Cup. "Success!"

It wasn't just about untying the earphone, it was like I was just going through something cold in my life.

I plugged my headphones into my phone, and the first song I played was Brother Boy's bed story, and the music was so loud that it was better than ever, maybe because I knew it didn't have to carry a knot anymore.

I sat back for a while, rolled up the earphone, kept it super beautiful, didn't throw it anymore, because I knew that by letting it get tangled up, it would cause us stupid problems.

I chuckled and thought that our lives were no different from this earpiece. The problem was messy because we let it go haphazardly, never intentionally, never loosened, and when it was time, we had to sit down and hurt our head and solve it one knot at a time.

But when we calm down, take a little time, see which problem starts first, which problem is the easiest to solve, and then solve it one knot at a time based on difficulty-ease, everything unravels like headphones.

I smiled, plugged in my headphones, listened to music, walked out of my room like a winner in a small world.

..............

"Synthetic man."