Story of a Chair

This is the story of a chair. No, that’s not quite right. This is the story of a man. At the end of the day, that’s what it is. A man. Yes. Well, now, that’s not quite right either. It is, and yet it isn’t. That is to say: it is the story of a chair but it is also the story of a man. There are laws that make this so. Three, in fact. First, there is the law (if that’s the correct term) of metaphor, whereby one thing stands as a symbol for another; usually object for subject. In this case: chair for man. The idea being to give a sense of the man who spends every hour of every day in his chair, each lending purpose to the other. This is the poetic law, for it is always better—if you want to give a sense of something—not to talk about it directly. To look slant. An allusive method that introduces a measure of longing, a gap, and this gap is always poetic because it is crude to discuss it directly. Also, the use of a symbol works to defer the implied, while at the same time calling it to mind. That is to say, the subject (i.e., the man) is brought to our attention when we describe the chair—even, after a while, when we say the word ‘chair.’ In this way we might evoke a few shared qualities. Say: stillness, solitude and silence. Best of all: submission. A thing to be sat upon. An object on which people sit. Yes, the first law. A thing’s essence embodied by a subject. And it is often, almost always, a one-way street. In this case: chair projecting chairness onto man. Wait. This isn’t right. No, these ideas may be true in other stories, but not this one. The chair in this story is no metaphor for the man. It’s just a chair. This is, after all, the story of a chair. Is it? Is it? Yes. Absolutely. About a chair and its most precious quality: chairness. But what about the man? We are forgetting the man. Remember: he’s the one sitting in it all day every day, giving the chair its chairness. What about him? Which brings us to law number two: that by which an object transfers its properties to a subject; or, inversely, by which the subject takes on the properties of an object. Which is to say: we are not talking mere allusion anymore, but an actual, material transference and physical transmutation. Not metaphor; rather a more tangible relation. An exchange, if you like. There is a principle by which some things transmit certain attributes and other things take them on. This happens with partners and pets all the time. No news there. But it also happens with objects. The man with a wobbly bicycle wheel who develops a limp. The fatigued lady whose phone never fully charges. The boy with the punching bag the scapegoat of his family. This is not poetic licence. This happens. Like telekinesis, only in reverse. The manipulation of matter. But this does not quite complete the picture because we’re forgetting now about the chair; all we’re thinking about is the man and how he develops chairness. The chair does not develop manness. Anyway, the thing is this: there’s more to our story than simple mimicry, one thing acting like another, and so our second law does not explain our problem fully. A third law, then, and the first of thermodynamics: the law of the conservation of energy whereby energy cannot be created or destroyed but can only change form. That is: there are only a certain number of attributes to go around. One gains, the other loses. This is also true of interpersonal relationships, particularly the romantic variety, which consist of finite portions of love, courage and strength depending on the temperaments of the parties involved. In many cases, these things go in one direction and are never recouped. One person is drained of everything like a dead star, while the other gathers strength and uses it, often to leave. Likewise, objects live by this principle of alteration and loss. Being subject to change, it can be said that things have lives. So to say that this is the story of a chair and the story of a man is not to say the object is interchangeable with the subject; it doesn’t represent him and he does not imitate its attributes. Rather, like the man, the chair has a life, and thus a story, one that involves time and, by extension, loss. Yes, so we can agree: this is the story of a chair. So: for his part, in line with the first two laws, the man takes on the chair’s attributes, albeit very gradually. One week his back stiffens and he walks like a rusted Tinman with a hand to his lumbar. A month later his elbows lock open and he’s unable to work. And one morning, holding himself at an awkward angle to his desk, he is writing her yet another letter when his hips and knees seize at right angles sending him groaning to the floor on all fours. Unable to rise, his bones petrify to wood, a process which eventually affects the skin, the hair and the nails until he has assumed and usurped the form of the chair he has for years sat on. As for his new status as a chair, he remains indistinguishable from any other save for one important point: going abandoned, he is now an item that simply collects dust and can therefore never be referred to as a chair.

Adam Ouston is a writer living in Hobart, Tasmania. His work has appeared in places such as Southerly, Island Magazine, Picton Grange, Voiceworks, Crikey, The Lifted Brow, The Review of Australian Fiction and Transportation: Islands and Cities. He is the recipient of the 2014 Erica Bell Literary Award for his manuscript 'The Party'.