Ode to a Chair

I walked past the broken chair sitting liked a hunched bum on the sidewalk. The worn yellow stripes with the water stains at the bottom and the threadbare arms reminded me again of how much I had disliked that piece of furniture. It had been sitting in the apartment with a comforter thrown over it and had therefore given the impression that there was a far more comfortable seat under there. In fact, if one didn't know what was underneath that comforter to begin with, one would sit on that antique and for a split second think they were relaxing, until a lumpy spring began to poke into a butt-cheek.

In the daylight, in the heat, on the sidewalk, however, that seat sat like a faded bulge of yellow, exposed to the elements and left to its fate. I watched as a small sparrow flew off of the derelict, decrepit, crumpled (dare I say self-pitying?) chair and into a low hanging branch. I wouldn't sit there either, I thought. I knew that chair once as it had been when it was sitting in the still, dark apartment it lived in. It was given a second chance, taken off the streets in the hopes of providing a home with a more comfortable environment. It failed, however, moving from the living room, to the foyer, to being covered up with the comforter, to finally: the street again. That thing would probably be carried off to a garbage dump in Staten Island or maybe: some other poor sap would come along and, seeing only the possibility of how charming those little yellow stripes would be in their apartment (and ignoring the glaringly obvious water stains at the bottom) they'll pick that chair up and take it home. Who knows. After a second glance at the thing I didn't really want to find out what happened to it. It's a piece of New York City history at this point, it's moving on to another place.

Goodbye you poor pathetic chair, good luck out there in the world! I won't really miss you, to be honest, as you were not very comfortable, nor were you very stable. You were pretty, once. And even with your arms worn thin by the hundreds of times people have rested there, and the lumpy cushion were once, in your better days, you provided a comfort for those needing a break from standing, you still can give off an impression of a cute, unassuming, slightly sad looking, take-me-home-and-love-me vibe which I am sure will serve you well if ever a time comes when you're fished out of the dump and used again.

Adieu.