The Yellow Chair

Everyone ends up in a chair. Life leads you to that place to spend the day and evening; a cockpit with armreach access to phone, remote and reading materials, to clock, to address book, medications and water, to a place to throw the newspaper and the table where you like to take your meals. Your spot, where you can be found, comfortable in your chair.

There's a house across the catty-corner street from me, that has felt little life since I've been here, a year and a half. The shades are drawn all day -- they are in most houses on the street, I find -- but these closed drapes felt different than the others.

One day, in the winter, I saw an old lady bring her garbage can to the curb on waste management night. She turned around and went straight back indoors, and I never saw her since. Her drapes never moved, either. One day they did. That day a younger woman , a daughter she seemed, was taking in some air in the the frontyard. It looked like she ws there for the weekend. I saw some vans at the house a few days ago. And by trash day, I could tell what had happened. The old woman's belongings were at the curb, waiting for pick-up. There were lots and lots of garbage bags, boxes, and a yellow chair -- a faded and worn yellow chair, sitting, waiting at the curb.

This chair. This logical progression both broke my heart and gave me an image of a lifespan. A worn chair, sitting there. Although its empty, its not empty at all.