The Chair (PDF)

​

She’s ruined the chair with her pants. The dye, midnight black, coals the white cushion of the seat. She stands and eyes the shape of its blemish. 

 

I can buy a new one, she says.

 

No need, I tell her. It’s fine. Though I intuit it’s supposed to be my furniture, my room, my apartment, I’ve never seen any of it before. And anyway, I don’t care. I’m preoccupied by the stain itself: the nature of its powdered blur, like a deep black thumbprint marring the otherwise impeccable white seat. 

 

I smile in consolation. Maybe, I offer, we’ll remove the cushion and hang it on the wall. Like a piece of art. 

 

She laughs, slowly angling the heft of her ass to me. Is there anything back there? she asks. 

 

I want to tell her that this, too, is fine, but when I look at the seat of her pants, I see that the chair has also rubbed off on her: just as she’s inked and blackened the seat, it has chalked the curve of her ample backside, dusting her with its color, its essence.

 

I’m unsure how to communicate this to her, or if I should say anything at all. I’m seized by an uncanny anxiety. 

 

She continues looking over her shoulder as I admire her rear, the chair, her rear, the chair.