The Chair: Third Person

The Chair: Third Person

Wearily his body makes its way along the familiar path to his nightly destination.

The tattered green upholstery masks the comfort and quality of this special place where all his thinking occurs.

Years of sitting, years of quietly contemplating private memories, years of getting lost in the mindless distractions of sitcoms, game shows, and the evening news; the chair has come to know each of his body’s fragile curves.

Time and time again he has spent evenings wasting his time allowing the television to do his thinking for him. Lately, however, the distractions have not worked their magic. Time and time again the thoughts of his life and his loneliness have crept back into plain view.

The choices one makes to find peace and tranquility become the very choices that mark ones life full of regrets.

And as he battles between forgetting and becoming numb, he sips his glass of vodka waiting for sleep to consume him.

For a moment he is free, free until a news bulletin interrupts his lack of concentration and focuses his attention on all things family, all things worth loving.

A child speaks briefly about a tragic loss, a fire that has consumed his parent’s home.

Although more will follow on the evening news, the sound of desperation in this child’s voice was all that it took to cause the tears to well up in the old man’s eyes.

The Chair: First Person

The Chair: First Person

After another long day, just like every other day that I have lived for most of the past fifteen years; I make my way to my final evening resting place.

When did I begin to find myself in this pattern?

I get home from work exhausted, heat a prepackaged TV dinner in the microwave; pour myself a glass of vodka and flip through the channels until sleep and I become one.

It is sad to think that this chair of mine with its worn out upholstery and the telltale squeaks that disclose its age; this chair of mine knows me better than any living soul.

It was my choice to walk away, to take my leave from the world I knew.

The chaos and the stress of a family were far too much for me, but I can not help but wonder if my children ever think of me. As I take a sip I remind myself that I do not want to go down this path of thinking, this path that inevitably leads me full of sorrow and regret.

The vodka will soon take its effect on me and if I focus on the television I might get lost, I hope I will get lost, I need to get lost, once again.

I wish I had been in the kitchen when the news bulletin interrupted my evening ritual. Apparently there had been a fire and its only survivor was a young boy.

Without many words it was easy to discern that this child had lost his family and he was full of despair for losing those he loved so dearly. That is when the tears came. It was not the tears of empathy; it was the tears of regret.

Had the fire come to visit me, there would be no one whose eyes filled with tears like the eyes of this small boy.

I Will Not Forget You!

Dimly lit was the room in which I stood.

The portrait was etched electronically on a plastic credit card

She was a beautiful little girl, one of so many, one of millions.

And then it hit.

I had to separate myself from myself

As emotions from deep within began to swell

Emotions flooding as I held back the tears.

Nearly unable to do so.

She was a princess, a true and genuine beautiful little princess

With a smile so pure and full of life.

She looked like my daughter, that was what struck me like a bolt of lightening and caused me to quiver in the depths of my being.

If she was from Poland, I literally said to myself…I will lose it.

There will be no holding back.

Reality and fantasy danced and intertwined in some strange divine connection.

She looked like my daughter, if she was born in the land of my people I will lose it.

And then the truth presented itself, it was as I had feared.

She was from Poland.

She was among the missing.

She was among the brutalized, dehumanized, tortured and beaten.

She was among those many children that were robbed of life.

She was one of many.

Reva Grabo,

I now know what weeping is.

It is being filled with tears, filled completely

and holding them back.

At those moments that they break through; whether lightly or in a flood,

it is in this moment, this moment itself,

that weeping finds its name.

Reva Grabo

I have wept for you!

And I will carry you forever in my heart.