The Chair

http://harrywrites.wordpress.com/

*the story of this story: On the way home I walked past a chair outside someone’s house. I thought to myself that’s quite a nice chair. Upon realising I was locked out, I headed back up the road and got the chair to sit on whilst I waited. As I sat, I wrote this story. The chair now sits in the corner of my room. This is the story of a chair’s life.

The chair had sat in the corner of the living room longer than anyone could remember. It’s smooth and worn material had felt the embrace of many a buttock and it had watched the world go by, ever vigilant. It was a cautious and resolute sentinel who observed family after family across generations: within its leathery lining were memories that spanned decades.

The first it can remember was the Lady of the house, the chairs original proprietor, reclining upon it with knitting needles and a stack of wool. The chair didn’t know much about her, but she was a Crimean War widow for which the house was originally constructed; she had spent many hours to talking to no one about her husband within the chair’s comfortable folds.

Twenty-three years and many a knitted jumper later, whilst the Lady was undergoing the severest of fevers, the chair would bear witness to her final breaths as she slumped within its arms; she mutters words of love for her husband and floats off to meet him. The servants find her hours later and the screams of the housewife still echo within the walls if one listens hard enough; her tears stain the chair.

The arrival of the Bentleys quickly followed the Lady’s death. The chair was only aware of their name due to the eldest son notching ‘J.B Bentley, 1879’ into the wooden seat, which, if you were to peel back the modern upholstery, would be revealed in its full glory. Arthur Bentley, with tails and cane, was a prestigious banker from the city, but he was a suspicious man. Tales of the old Lady’s death haunted him at night and one Saturday morning, with a determination reserved only for rash decisions, Arthur removed the chair to the attic amongst old paintings and dusty boxes.

For the chair it all goes dark as Arthur closes the trap-door.

It is sixty years later: 1941, the chair observes from newspapers littered across the accompanying side table. The new family, one with two young children, discover the chair whilst searching for junk to scrap and sell. The father is absent, presumably at war or already dead; the mother decides to keep the chair because it “fits” in the living room.

As German bombers rain hell and fire down upon the house, the chair sits patiently.

One night the bombs land closer than ever: the glass in the window opposite the chair is shattered and the tape gives way to the force. Shards of glass nick and tear at the chair’s lining and the insides spew out, but it sits patiently.

The morning after the raid a child, no more than three or four, enters the living room stained with blood and tears. She screams “Mummy!” but there is no one around to hear except the silent watcher. Fading away to exhaustion and grief, she collapses and disappears into the softness of the wing-backed chair.

It’s a week later and following reports from neighbours suggesting a search of the house, salvation volunteers finally find the young girl emaciated and alone in the living room. She hasn’t left the chair.

The house stands empty until the war ends and when the father comes home to discover his family dead " excluding his youngest daughter " he sits in the chair and cries.

Months later, father and daughter relax in the chair and he tells her the great and grand stories of the war. They cuddle and talk for hours and she falls asleep by the low glow of the lamp and to the soft soothing words of her father.

Decades later he would cradle his grand-son and they too would fall asleep in the chair.

The chair witnesses hundreds of Christmas’ and birthdays. The cushions change shape, size and style over the years and the upholstery is changed three times within its majestic reign. It survives flood, fire and a thousand tiny feet and hands crawling across it; the chair even survives the piercingly curious claws of the old blind Dalmatian. The chair bore witness to the first radio, then the first television and the first VHS player and the mirth and joy it inspired. It watches man walk on the moon and JFK taking bullets to the chest. The chair sees music and Toy Story and Pulp Fiction. The chair saw it all.

Unfortunately, the chair, like all things, grew old. The legs creaked and cracked and the spine grew strained; the soft stuffing became wiry and hard and before long it became the chair that nobody sat in. With no mouth to recount the wondrous tales, the chair became useless.

The chair, much like all things given a practical purpose by their creator, silently longed to be used and treasured. But, when Christmas rolled around again, the adamant mother of the chair’s family buys a new one: it reclines and has slots in the arms for carbonated drinks. With a green envy, the old chair is picked up and left outside on the street: passers-by inspect it now and then, but for the most part it is ignored. Through rain and snow the chair suffers patiently.

Come New Year plus twenty-seven, the man grows impatient and piles the chair into the back of his old Estate. It won’t fit but he snaps the bulbous and worn legs from the base and puts them, clawed feet and all, into the fire-bin.

It’s a slow journey through traffic and the chair watches the world go past; a lot has changed since it last journeyed. Under the sign that reads ‘Dump’ the man enters a ticket and throws the chair over the edge into the rubbish.

Proudly, the chair sits amongst the debris: it’s pocked wings stretch out behind it and with a gallant dignity of centuries the old chair is ripped apart by the fingers of industry for it has no place in the future; with a quiet groan, creak and snap, out spills memories. The chair is gone and with it the memory of hundreds.

Reviews

[Aella.lives]

You really, really put a story in this chair. And I almost view it as an abandoned person even though this 'chair' is an inanimate object..

I'm quite shocked on how well written this is, too. Simply amazing... and now I'm off to read more.

:)

[de_maruf]

good

[tamsin]

This is just...wow...I feel for that chair...amazing : D

[KAOlmsted]

Only you could make me weep for a chair...

(I wonder if you mean 'emaciated' instead of 'emancipated' in regard to the little girl) ?

[Harry Alston]

Haha! That I do, that I do...will have to change that now, thanks for pointing it out :) Thank you again for your comments.