fear, love, destroy.

I: FEAR

21. 11. 1977.

A curious and inexplicable uneasiness held her in a vice.

The chair is evil.

Cursed.

You’re crazy for letting him bring this into your home.

Her hurrying thoughts clamoured for articulation. As the chair gingerly rocked back and forth, he stood by the window, chattering away about how the austere, high-backed rocking chair practically spoke to him at the second-hand store, demanding to be the first addition to their new apartment. Ironically, it was not him, but her, who the chair seemed to be speaking to, with every mocking, splintered creak being fought by a quiver of resistance.

Noticing the cold gaze of paranoia on her face, he jokingly reassured, “Don’t worry darling. The chair can’t hurt you.”

II: LOVE

21. 11. 2007.

As she walked towards the rocking chair holding two teacups in her trembling hands, her body weight shifted from one side to the other, characteristic of the old age in which mobility is compromised, but not entirely gone. Quietly, she sat on the ottoman adjacent to the chair, taking a cautious sip of the still-boiling tea while she knitted and purled robotically- her eyes fixated on the needles, his eyes fixated on her. A calmness temporarily settled on her spirit. The sound of his breath, his admiring silence- her subconscious knew that she was safe. Her foot gently rocked his chair, anchoring her to all that was real and concrete- to him. Although she seemed to be muttering under her breath, she was unresponsive to the many questions he had asked her, signalling the stillness of a forced composure. His stare dissolved as he detected the hollow rim of her vacant eyes, his mind now dazed into a misty labyrinth of memories, sequenced by her onset to what the doctors now termed ‘acute paranoid schizophrenia.’ A few hours later, the now finished scarf in her hands fell to the floor as the tempest in her mind found sudden speech, coming out as a slurred “They’re spreading...the chair...crawling...the bugs...get off.”

III: DESTROY

21. 11. 2017.

A ghastly paleness overspread her cheek upon the sight of the now empty, tattered and cobwebbed chair. Her slumped shoulders and curved spine curled into a squat as she hesitantly lowered herself onto it, with every motion amplifying the riot in her mind. A year since his passing marked a year of the chair’s solitude- both during and after his lifetime, she had never sat on the chair. Strangely, the chair had brought her comfort from a distance- a steady, rhythmical reminder of his presence. However, each back-and-forth movement now corresponded with a state of both panic and calmness. A wild, unexpected vivacity became apparent in her face and manner as she propelled her body aggressively, the soft rocking now turning into a pendulum ride. Her hands moved in familiar knitting motions, despite there being nothing in her hands. Crawling. Swarming. Stinging. The overwhelming sensation of formication joined hands with the ridiculing voices she had spent decades fighting, her body and soul entering a battle destined for mutual destruction. Agitated with violently contending emotions, she jolted up, kicking the already-dilapidating chair with a newfound strength that hadn’t surfaced even in her youth. In a spectacular display of wrath, she thrusted the chair down the stairs, watching the rocker rails bounce from stair to stair before breaking off, leaving her in an anguish of remorse. A great pang gripped her heart as she wiped the hot, shameful tears off with the scarf around her neck, each knit and purl reminiscent of a time in which she was not alone.

“The chair didn’t hurt you, did it?”, he whispered.