close to the aperture [chair II]

[chair II]

this chair spends its days (i assume) when i am not on it, empty or occupied by ghosts of humans and ghosts of cats. mostly, for i have seen them often, the cats doze upon it in the afternoon sun (if there is any), but they are wont, as cats are, to scratch at it – they are only stretching, plying their muscles – but, over the last couple of years, despite vocal scolding, liberal application of lemon juice (to the leatherette!) – the smell of which, apparently not, is repellent to phantom felines – their claws have begun to take their toll on the covering, revealing the hard yellow foam beneath the slashed leatherette.

i found the thought forming some time ago that when the chair is wrecked it would designate the beginning of the end of something. or the end of the beginning of something. or something.

and, so it seemed to be for sometime.

it still hasn’t reached the point of complete disrepair. i no longer live with cats and the covering is, to these eyes, no worse than it was. it wears its scratches. it seems to me now, two years later, unthinkable that i would consider throwing it out. i sit upon it, still, in another kitchen. and it still bears me and it still bears its ghosts.