Chair - A Haunting

Short Fiction

Dearest Penguin People,

I’ve been obsessed with angry furniture lately. Not sure why…This is set in the early 70’s so if you are unfamiliar with Twiggy and gold Super Beetles, just be thankful that you’re not old and realize that not all fashion statements are created equal :)

There once was a chair, a very bad chair. It sat in the upstairs den behind my grandfather’s desk. It was nothing special, just a lumpy recliner with claw feet that sometimes wandered out into the hallway. If my grandmother discovered it during one of her endless sojourns with a feather duster, she would cluck and move it back behind the desk, telling me I shouldn’t touch my grandfather’s things.

But I never went into that room. It had all the allure of an abandoned bus terminal, old and musty with dark things growing in the corners. Besides, I didn’t like the way the chair looked at me.

One day my Aunt Audra showed up on the front porch step. She pushed Twiggy sunglasses down the bridge of her nose, her hazel eyes peering over the frames. “What are you doing here?”

Grandfather appeared in the doorway beside me. “He’s spending the summer with us.” He paused, then said, “He was invited.”

Audra crossed her arms. “Funny.”

He glanced beyond his daughter to the gold Super Beetle parked in the driveway; her belongings bulging out of the windows and sunroof. “I guess, you’re staying then?”

Her answer, a tight little smile.

He shook his head and motioned her inside, not offering to help in any way.

Audra commandeered the den. She fought the gloom with an army of candles, not caring where the wax dripped. Then she thumbed through his books, swapping out volumes of Thoreau and Whitman with dog-eared copies of Plath and Vonnegut. As he stood fuming, his face an impossible shade of red, she lugged in a blue Remington typewriter and plopped it on his desk. She sat in the recliner, clutching the armrests, and stared unblinking into her father’s eyes.

“That’s my chair,” he said.

“Is it?” Her lips parted, showing only the smallest glint of teeth.

And so, it went. My aunt, a blur of color, flitted about in brightly hued scarves and bell bottoms, rainbow roach clips dangling from her hair. She declared she was writing a novel, the likes of which had never been seen, and was not to be disturbed. Her nights were spent buried in the den, the clack and ding of the carriage return stretching into the wee hours.

With each passing night the chair’s ire grew. It developed a rotting fungal scent akin to the bottom of a compost heap. One night the backrest folded like a taco, trapping Audra inside. I happened to be walking by and ran in to pry her loose. She cursed as I struggled to pull it off.

“Why don’t you use another chair?” I asked.

She stood up, kicking the recliner, before sitting down and forcing the backrest to a suitable position. “I decided when I came back it’s either me or the chair.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Father has to choose who is more important.”

“But he’s letting you use the room.”

“Only because Mother told him to.” She put a new sheet of paper in the typewriter. “Now, beat it. I’m busy.”

And so, it continued.

Every morning, she stumbled off to bed and Grandfather cleared the clutter from his desk, uttering choice words as he did so. When every trace of his wayward daughter was gone, he sat down and read the newspaper, the chair acclimating to his thin frame like a hug.

One morning she wandered into the den saying she had a brilliant idea that needed to be written down post-haste. He tossed a notepad and pen at her. “Here, this should do.”

“Father, I need the desk now.”

He turned the page of his newspaper, not looking up from the obituaries.

She wavered for a moment, then eyed the record player. She chose an album and placed it on the turntable, volume cranked. Purple Haze crashed through the room, threatening to blow out the windows. My grandfather stalked across the room, picked up the record and smashed it against the wall. Then he dragged her into the hallway and told her to get a job. He didn’t care what kind, just anything to get her out of the house.

She fled back into the den.

We heard her say, “Mozart? You like Mozart?” Then the crack of a record being broken in half across her knee. It was followed by a wholesale collection of crashes and splintering vinyl, one after another. And yet, my grandfather stood quietly by, breathing through his mouth.

It wasn’t until he heard the chair being dragged closer to the desk that he raised his chin, his eyes becoming dark pits in his face.

“Audra.” He tried the door but it was locked. “Don’t you mess with my chair.”

It went quiet. We put our ears to the door.

At first, it was just indiscernible mutterings and sighs, then a pounding, as she hit the chair with something hard.

The color fled from Grandfather’s cheeks. “What are you doing, Audra?”

“It’s just like you,” she called out to him. “It won’t bend.” We could hear her fight the pushback mechanism, trying to leverage the chair into a usable position. There was a loud crack, then a satisfied hum from Audra. The keys of the Remington began clacking at a frenetic pace.

“I’m warning you,” my grandfather said.

Clack, clack, clack.

Grandfather looked at me. “You have nothing better to do?”

“No.”

He threw his arms into the air. “I’m going to find the key.” He trudged off.

The typing stopped. Muffled obscenities reached beyond the door. The floor shook as if a heavy object was jumping up and down. That’s when the screaming began.

“Aunt Audra?” I tried the door. It remained locked.

My grandfather came running up the stairs. He fumbled with his keys. The screaming was muted now. He jammed a key in the lock, it didn’t turn. “Damn it.” He tried another, it worked. He opened to a silent room.

“Audra?”

The room was empty. The typewriter was wedged into the wastebasket beside the desk.

Grandfather opened the closet, finding nothing but winter coats and a stack of ancient board games. He tried the window but it was locked from the inside. Meanwhile, I stood by the chair, my hand over my mouth.

“What is it?”

He followed my outstretched hand. Audra’s scarf was wedged between the cushions. I pulled it out, only a jagged fragment remaining. I held up the mangled fabric, not having to say it. It wasn’t ripped, the bite marks obvious to even my young eyes.

We never found her. The police said she probably ran away and left it at that. We didn’t speak about it but Grandfather and I knew that the chair had eaten her. And yet, Grandmother remained in denial, convinced that her daughter would come back. To make up for it, Grandfather did something he swore he would never do. He bought her a parakeet. Ecstatic, Grandmother named it Esme, and placed it in a gilded cage in the downstairs living room where it tweeted all freaking day.

If we had thought the drama would end with Audra’s disappearance, we were wrong. The chair refused to stay behind the desk. Most days it sat in the middle of the den on the Persian carpet, facing the hall door. There were no drag marks across the rug surface, as if it had lifted its clawed feet and walked. Grandmother stopped blaming me. I think a part of her knew but she refused to accept that the chair was evil. Instead, she placed it behind the desk with care and then left on the pretense of having to clean or bake something. And even when outside, I couldn’t escape its hungry glare. It tilted forward in the den window, staring at me between the chintz curtains, armrests quivering. At night it took to clumping down the hallway only to stop in front of my room. The creak of worn hinges opening and closing, salivating at my door, kept me paralyzed under the blankets until morning.

I tried to talk to Grandfather but he would hear nothing of it. So, I suffered alone, knowing the chair had acquired a taste for blood. I just didn’t want it to be mine.

It came to a head one Sunday morning before church. Grandmother walked into the living room to check on Esme, quietly humming under her breath. We both heard her scream. Grandfather ran in to find the cage sideways on the floor, door smashed open with no parakeet in sight. I backed slowly up the stairs to the second landing. Something nudged my ankle. I spun around and saw the chair, short and squat like a bull terrier, standing at the top, blue and yellow feathers scattered across the seat cushion. Angry breaths peppered the back of my neck. Grandmother stood behind me, hands clenched at her sides. She had seen the light and that was it. The chair had to go.

The next day a truck showed up to take the chair away. The house seemed lighter after it was gone and I thought that perhaps the summer could be salvaged. Surely now, everything would go back to normal.

That night, I heard a thump outside my door.

I walked across the floor in bare feet. “Who’s there?”

There was a tapping, a squeak of old hinges.

I peeked out the door. My grandparents’ snores wafted down the hall. Then a scrabble of wooden claws. A shadow detached itself from the wall and moved around the corner, toward the den.

I locked my door and spent the rest of the night in my closet.

I finally fell asleep but was awakened by my grandmother’s shrill voice. “You love that damn chair more than you love me.”

“But dearest, I have no idea how it got here. You saw them take it away.”

“I’ve had it.”

A door slammed.

I walked to the den. Grandfather was sitting in the chair with his newspaper and a cup of Earl Grey. He didn’t look unhappy.

He glanced up at me. “You need something?”

The chair’s brocade cushions melded to my grandfather’s body, spreading across his arms like a cocoon. It rippled, breathing in the morning sun.

“No.” I took a step back. “Just wanted to say good morning.”

“Good morning.” He took a sip of tea.

The door swung shut.

My grandmother left him that day, taking me with her. I learned later that she took all his money but he kept the house. I wrote him over the years but he never responded.

No one was more surprised than I when he left the house to me in his will. I was newly married to a kind wife whom I didn’t deserve. I told the lawyer I had no intention of living in that house, no way, no how. The lawyer said that was fine but there was a provision that I had to visit the house at least once before selling. The lawyer met me at the door with an envelope. The letter read,

“Dear Michael. You may do with the house as you wish on one condition. Please pay your respects by reading the paper in my chair, one last time. It would mean the world to me.”

“Are you serious?” I asked the lawyer.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t want to sit in that chair.”

“Then don’t. You can walk away.”

I stood in the doorway, a benevolent sun shining in, giving the house a warm glow.

“So, I can’t sell the house unless I do this?”

“It is unusual, but yes. Those are the terms.”

“Any idea how much this house is worth?”

She handed me an appraisal.

I went pale. I could do this.

I stood outside the den for a good five minutes. The lawyer had stayed downstairs to go through the mail. The chair stared at me, breathing in the shadows that pooled along the floorboards. It gave a little hop. I almost ran downstairs. But if I sold the house, I’d be debt free and have money left over for the baby that was on the way.

I squared my shoulders and pulled the chair out from behind the desk.

I sank into the cushions. It curved around me, purring. It leaned back slightly, just the right angle for an aching back, the sigh of a hundred summers in my ears. It occurred to me.

This was a good chair, a very good chair.

If you have the inclination…