The Chair

She slowly removed the cobwebs from her attic doorway. Suddenly some dust fell on her from the roof. She coughed twice. She had always been allergic to dust. She looked around, the attic was dim-lit. She had a hard time adjusting to the light in the attic. Today she came here to look for an old tool box. It had been so long since she came to the attic. Recent pregnancy and child-birth prevented her from moving around much, let alone the attic.

She rummaged an old cardboard box with the hope of finding that tool box. She searched for a while, got dust covered all over her body, but all in vain. She couldn't find that old tool box of hers. Disappointed, she was about to get out of the room and close the door behind her. Just then, she noticed that chair. Abandoned, in one corner of the room, the chair lay fully covered in dust. She was surprised to find it here because she had long forgotten the existence of this chair.

The chair and she have a long story together. The earliest memories of chair include her Pa reading newspaper diligently, sitting in this chair, every morning. Many a time, she climbed up into his lap while he was sipping his morning coffee and rested her head on his chest. He would continue reading the paper and tell her one or two stories from that days news. Sometimes, she came back from school and insisted that she wanted to eat sitting in the chair, much to the resentment of her mom. Later in college days, the chair remained her favourite hang-out place at her home. She loved spending hours, sitting in it and reading her favourite books. She cried sitting in it when her heart was broken for the first time, she drifted off to sleep while watching her favourite late night tv shows. The chair grew as a part of her and she always felt comfortable in its arms.

Somewhere in the folds of time, as days progressed to months and months to years, the chair was moved to attic. It happened as a natural progression of life. Thinking about it now, she believes that happened after her Pa passed away. She couldn't look at that chair without seeing Pa in it. Soon, she forgot about the chair and other priorities started shaping up her life.

She was woken up from her day dream by the wails of her new born son. She directed her maids to clean the chair and bring it to the front porch of the house.

With her son in her arms, she walked slowly to the front porch. The chair had settled in the porch as if it has a long association with this house. She sat in the chair, with her son's head resting against her chest. While she patted him to sleep, she felt life has come a full circle. She felt that somewhere up above her Pa must be smiling at this beautiful picture.

Authors Note: This post was triggered by a picture that was send to me by my friend Madhu. He sent it to me thinking that I will get an idea for 55 fiction, but I couldn't contain the story in 55 words :) The picture is given below:



Madhu is a Freelance Eclipse Trainer and Consultant and is the master mind behind the website eclipseBible.com. He also blogs about his experiments and the latest advances in Eclipse over here