Chairs

They came down from the mountains and sold me furniture. That was alright with me--after the breakup all my chairs got confiscated and without anything to sit on the house just didn't feel right anymore. Also, people had stopped coming around because, as everybody knows, excessive standing leads to back problems; in a town of tightrope-walkers, back pain might as well be cancer... And so the chairs weren't just a matter of comfort, they were an opportunity to reclaim my social life.

There were twelve chairs in total, very fine darkwood, sturdy, the kind where you just want to go and stack them on top of each other and build elaborate chair pyramids out of. I didn't feel bad either, because darkwood trees are said to be very dull trees, hardly capable of feeling pain at all. They grow high up in the mountains and mostly live in packs.

Arranging the chairs properly took a few days. Twelve chairs are not easy to arrange. Two, three chairs, that's nothing, but if you're looking at more than seven you really can't be wishy-washy about it. Experts will agree here. Twelve chairs, that's forty-eight chair legs to keep track of after all. Forty-eight chair legs, give or take.

Fortunately Boris helped me out. He squeezed in through the kitchen window which had gotten too small for him over the years and wiped the shiny beads of sweat from his pink forehead. "Well..." he said and then started moving the chairs about the kitchen with me. His stomach and mustache got in the way a bit but the man knew what he was doing--when evening came we were already done with the kitchen and the bedroom. One chair by the bed, three chairs around the kitchen table, another turned upside down in the corner--that's where she had used to sit. "Well, well..." Boris exhaled heavily and sank onto one of the chairs by the table. I made tea and we sat and watched as outside the sky turned pink, then violet, then black. "Yes, well..." Boris said eventually and got up. I thanked him and helped him out the kitchen window. His palm was very warm and sweaty and the rope bulged dangerously beneath his feet as he balanced off into the night.

I still had three chairs left after doing the living room. In the end I decided to put them on the roof--I stacked them artfully and wrapped them up in Christmas lights. I was very pleased with it. Boris approved as well. "Well, yes!" he exclaimed and patted me on the shoulder.

Just as expected, people started coming around again soon enough. The following months were good, the nights filled with wonderful music and merry voices and warm light. People I liked came up the swinging ropes and didn't leave until early in the morning. We sat on the chairs or stood on the roof, smoking, admiring the pyramid of chairs with the Christmas lights wrapped around them. Good months...

Then, one night, she came back. Just like that, she turned the chair in the corner of the kitchen around and sat on it, watching the other guests through her quiet, violet eyes. Her long, dark hair fell onto her shoulders softly, bruising me inside. She sat there all night, her arms slung around her knees and I paced about the house thinking that I should rearrange the chairs. Boris was the last one to leave that night; good, old Boris, he gave her an accusing, bushy-browed look and then patted me on the shoulder and muttered "Well, uh..."  I helped him out the kitchen window and then we were alone. I leaned against a wall.

"Darkwood, huh?" she said finally and I nodded. "I like how you arranged them. Twelve chairs aren't easy to arrange," she continued and smiled and I thought about all the muscles that are strained whenever there is a smile and how the lips tighten. "Why did you come back?" I asked sharply, hoping that it would make her not smile anymore. It didn't. "Because I missed you." she said and looked up to me, from beneath black eye lashes. "Do you want to go up on the roof?" she asked and I shrugged.

On the roof we smoked and she told me about the clinic and how everyone wore white gowns and carried a sickness inside, even the doctors. She told me she could see the ocean from her room and that at night it looked like it was wrapped in Christmas lights because of all the ships and barges. She told me the ocean used to scare her half to death but it didn't anymore. "I wouldn't mind drowning in it, one day." she said and smoke drifted out between her parted lips. "I didn't know they had taken you to the clinic." I muttered and finally her face changed. "Bad things happen sometimes." she replied and didn't smile anymore.

We finished the pack and climbed back in through the window. Cruel as she was, she went about the house, sitting on the chairs and moving each one ever so slightly. Soon enough I had lost track of at least twenty chairs legs and had to stand by the window to get some fresh air. "What's the matter? Are you not feeling well?" she spoke quietly into my ear and then pulled up a chair from the kitchen for me to sit on. The darkwood screeched horribly as it got dragged across the floor. "You and your chairs..." she muttered and put her hand on my shoulder. It was warm because there was a lot of blood flowing through it. I tried not to think about it. "Your twelve wonderful chairs." she continued and sat on my lap and put her arms around me. Her whole body was warm; like an intricate vase it held all of her blood.

For a while she chattered on about this and that, her voice stuck in her throat, beating its desperate wings. Then she began to argue with me and grew upset. I wasn't sure what we were arguing about but she kept coming back to the chairs. "What if winter came?" she asked finally and her tone changed, her voice sinking into itself. "What if winter came, and we were all freezing?" she got up abruptly and glared at me. I didn't say anything. "Would you burn the chairs? Would you make a huge fire and burn them all? Would you do that to keep us warm?" I didn't want to answer but she kept yelling "Would you? Would you?" and I muttered "Why do you always have to be like that?" She wouldn't quiet down until, finally, they came in through the windows, all in white, and took her away. I sunk onto the chair in the corner of the kitchen, rested my elbow on my knee, my chin on the palm of my hand. Her voice echoed about house, beating its wings against the walls and windows just like it had in the confinement of her throat--Would you? Would you? Would you?
For the next week or so I couldn't sleep. I paced about the dark, empty house at night bruising my knees and shins on the chairs that had been moved, while her voice would-you-ed on despite the open windows and ghost-like waving curtains. I wasn't doing well.

*** 

Early one morning Boris, wearing his hiking boots and an enormous mud-green parka, came in through the front door with two packed rucksacks, one of which he handed to me. "Okay, well." he suggested and I understood. Boris went on hiking trips up to the mountains regularly and had promised to take me with him some time. As I shouldered the backpack I felt grateful and relieved--Boris could not have picked a better time to follow up on his promise.
 
And so we balanced along the ropes, north-ward, passing quaint little tree-houses and enormous house trees. Way above our heads the morning sun broke through the leaves in green and yellow ripples. The ruck-sacks were heavy and we were both out of shape so we didn't reach the edge of town until late afternoon. There the ropes ended and we hiked up the narrow, winding trail, gradually getting used to the solid, uneven ground beneath our feet, but tripping over the roots that reached out from beneath like frail wrists and knotty hands and petrified snakes. We marveled at the greenish twilight and the enormous, moss-covered tree bodies that grew steadily up towards the invisible sky.

The twilight grew into darkness quickly and changed the strange voices that echoed among the distant tree crowns. We gathered rocks and sticks and made a small fire which bloomed orange and warm and beautiful in the night. We ate the canned food Boris had brought and then he leaned back against a tree trunk heavily and told me stories about a war he had been part of. I stared into the fire, at the embers that seemed to radiate the sudden meaning of all things, the twelve chairs, her violet eyes, the hospital by the ocean, even Boris' war friend getting shoot in the stomach and tumbling to the ground. "Boris... Do you ever wonder why things happen?" I asked but Boris was already fast asleep, snoring, his mustache moving peacefully up and down.

The next day we got up very early because we still had a good way to go. Despite the morning chill Boris was sweating and panting heavily and his cheeks had turned very red. My legs and back ached with the steepening of the path and soon enough we had to move on all fours, gripping onto the roots and rocks, digging our fingers into the dirt for support. The trees began to change, bowing down towards the ground as if burdened with age, and the path narrowed, eventually disappearing entirely. Later, we passed through a grove of darkwood trees. Their bark was black and rough, like singed, raw iron and felt strangely warm against the palm of my hand. To me the voices of their ash-gray, muttering leaves didn't seem dull at all. As we went, I tried to imagine the turning of a tree into chairs but couldn't--the forms were too different.

We reached the edge suddenly. I was slightly ahead of Boris when I got to the clearing. One moment I was fighting through stubborn, gripping branches and pine-needles, then there was white light all around me, the vast open sky above, and a steep valley sloping into the immeasurable ocean below. I was taking the deepest breaths, could feel my chest heaving, and the wind brushed against my face like someone's cool palms. It swooped across thousands of restless tree crowns and escaped out into the pale-blue waters where the ghosts of islands faded quietly along the horizon. The wind returned, bringing tears to my eyes and the faint smell of the sea. Boris came up beside me, clutching onto his chest, his red cheeks billowing. For a while we just stood there, breathing.

"Well..." he muttered but this time it felt like there was more that he wanted to say. I patted him on the shoulder and waited for him to regain his breath. "You see?" he began, suddenly, "Here, it all makes sense. It all has a reason and the right words are easy to find." His voice was sad, and content, and triumphant, all at once. "There is the ocean, there is the valley, there are the islands beyond. For a moment it's all right here." he concluded. Looking out at the diverging plains of still, blue permanence I couldn't help but agree.

***

I was sitting on the chair by the window in the room with four white walls. I watched as the sun rose from the ocean. The light broke against the waves and and spilled its blood across the leaden surface. I thought the ocean was cruel but I had come to terms with it because at the same time it was beautiful. In this room with four white walls, there was only a chair, a bed, a desk, a night stand, the window and curtains, me and my quiet sickness. The ocean let me feel like there was more, like all the awful, empty spaces, inside and out, were filled by its incessant tide.

There was a polite knock on the door--two knocks that is, followed by a hesitant third--a nurse's voice announced that I had a visitor. A few minutes later he climbed in through the window. He looked tired, and calm, and lost. He always looked like that. "I brought you flowers..." he muttered and looked about for a place to put them. "Thank you." I said and felt my face tighten into a smile, pulled by strings that were attached to the back of my head. "Just put them on the table. I'll ask the nurse for a vase and some water later."

He placed the violets on the desktop carefully and then, without thinking, moved the desk just a tiny bit, aligning it with the wall and the window and suddenly the room looked brighter and less empty. He nodded to himself and muttered "There, that's better." He'd always been good at arranging things, putting them in the right place.

"I'm sorry about coming to your house and acting the way I did. I'm sorry about the chairs." I said to fill the silence between us. He shook his head, "Don't be, it's alright. The chairs got confiscated again anyways." He leaned against the wall and looked hurt.

 "Hey..." he said after a while and looked at me thoughtfully as if deciding where to place me. "Look, are you alright? I had no idea you were here. I should have come earlier. I'm sorry." I wanted to tell him that it was fine, that it wasn't his fault but I couldn't. In this room with four white walls, and with the cruel ocean waiting outside, my quiet sickness inside, words suddenly filled my throat like water and spilled on over. "Why, why didn't you find me?" I whispered. "I was so scared. We hurt each other, I know, but to just forget about me like that... Why didn't you find me?" I took a deep breath that shook my body and he put his arm around my shoulders and moved me over to the bed. When we sat down I thought he was going to mutter "There, that's better." He said "I'm sorry." instead. "It's just that in this place nothing ever makes sense and when nothing makes sense it's hard to tell if anything is wrong. I'm sorry." he repeated and fell silent again. I leaned my head against his skinny shoulder and looked up at the ceiling which in the early morning twilight looked pale-blue.

I wanted to say more, explain to him my sickness, something, anything at all, but the door flew open and the nurses came in, moving like enormous, white bees. They shut the curtains and knocked on the floor with their red knuckles and flipped the table upside down. Then they produced long, blue silk ribbons and started hanging them up around the room. They wrapped them around his neck and put some in my hair and when they had finished, they pulled apart the curtains again and left through the window. The blue ribbons moved in the ocean wind and made a quiet, silky noise but we remained very still, suddenly holding onto each other tightly, because we didn't know what else to do.

Magic

The magic is gone, he’d say and then he’d shake a fat, white rabbit out of his black top hat. The rabbit would land on the ground heavily like a scoop of ice cream. Then it’d fall apart into white mice. The mice would scatter off and the children would cheer, but no-one would really argue--the magic was, indeed, gone. His performances had become a routine, nothing more than a habit and he seemed to suffer greatly from it. After a show he’d pack up his things--his chains, and wands, and colorful handkerchiefs--and melt away into thin air because he didn't want people to see him off stage anymore. He didn't use to mind but now that the magic was gone he had grown shy, and weary of everyone's pitiful glances. So he’d walk home invisible, occasionally kicking at the leaves that littered the pavement. Passersby would confuse him with the wind. On those rare occasions when he did leave the cover of his invisibility cloak, his expressions were tragically violet like a winter evening.

Once the children asked him why the magic was gone, and he said, I don’t know, I don’t know! but the children thought he did. They insisted. He upset them by saying, the magic is gone for the same reason that people die. The children didn't inquire any further because they were aware that no-one knew why people died. Instead they asked politely if he could make a quarter disappear. He nodded and made their quarter disappear. The children clapped. Then they wondered if now they could have their quarter back, please. He conjured up a brand-new quarter for each one of them and then excused himself. After that he didn't make anything disappear or reappear anymore, not even himself, and gave the fat, white rabbit away to an animal shelter.

He spent the days locked up in his house; every night he could be seen sitting on his window sill, with the windows wide open and the white curtains waving around him. He had stopped eating and so it looked as if he were slowly, week by week, melting away in the moonlight. When asked what he was doing he’d say, I’m looking at the stars and studying their constellations because that's where the magic has gone. He was hoping it might come back for him. For three months he waited until one night the magic did return, if only briefly. It made the stars twinkle, and lifted him up gently from the window sill--his body was light and fragile now like a dry autumn leaf. He rose towards the waning moon until he was merely a dot and then gone, entirely.

The children were distraught at first but came to terms with it eventually. They made a promise to each other to always remember him the way he had been the first time they had seen him perform: a towering figure on the stage, his black cloak billowing; the magic all around him, waiting at the tips of his fingers, within the quiet smile upon his pale and slender face.

Amphigory

Good lord, what a mess... haven't you heard? It happened, why, the day before tomorrow, I believe... The sky collapsed into the future and now it’s raining upside down. Hopefully by Christmas we’ll be able to see the stars again; the meteorologists remain skeptical. Don’t worry, this will all make sense once I tell you about my trip to Australia last Spring. I’m still not sure what possessed me to vacation in that crocodile infested country. That’s what you get--promising career as a concert pianist, right down the crapper.

Should have gone to California instead.

Now there’s only air, and a stub, and a permanent itch where twenty seven bones used to be. Twenty seven musical bones, an eighth of all the bones I have. Roughly half of my interpretation of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata swallowed and digested by a large aquatic tetrapod.

Now do you see? Do you see why the sky collapsed into the future? 

Everyone out on the streets looks like they wet their pants, on account of the rain falling upside down, you know?

Sometimes I take out the crayons and draw the contours of my missing left hand on a piece of white paper. It looks a little bit like a turkey.

In the end what remains is the horrible, all-consuming fear of crocodiles.

Indian

Our town of Rock, Ohio, is haunted by the ghost of an Indian. In the evening he creeps through the undergrowth along the highway, or hides in the shadows of the abandoned factory buildings on Main Street. He carries a large bow made of elm and wears painted feathers in his black hair. His once bronze skin looks pale and transparent now and in his dark eyes you can see the sorrow of fallen willow trees. According to the town archives he was shot in the heart by a farmer right in front of the town church, some two hundred years ago. It's a real shame and we always try our hardest to make him feel at ease and like part of the community. It's not easy though--he does not seem to appreciate our efforts.

The time the kindergartners made him a gift basket is a good example. The gift basket consisted of a plush bison, dream catchers, and arrowheads they had found in the fields. Wonderfully arranged, really, but the Indian didn't take it very well. When the class had finally tracked him down and Ms. Holly, the kindergarten teacher, approached him, basket in hand, the Indian hissed and shot an arrow at her. The ghostly arrow went right through her head. The children scattered. Ms. Holly was down with the flu for a whole week after that.

The Indian isn't always so reclusive though--we weren't at all surprised when he walked into Ted's bar last Friday night. It was his death day and on his death day he always follows the same routine.

He stood in the corner silently and watched us, his eyes dark with reproach. Just before midnight he left. He stole down Main Street clutching his elm bow tightly. We followed at a safe distance. By the town church he stopped. He simply stood there and stared at the marble statue of Mary. He seemed to be waiting for something. We waited with him, for hours we waited, but, as usual, nothing happened, only the sun came out and the birds began to chirp. Eventually he disappeared, melted away into thin air, but everyone knew that he’d be back again soon.

Someone must have filmed him this time, because now there is a video online titled “Mary and the Ghost”. In the video you can see his light, fading silhouette, swaying back and forth like a tree in the wind, a gaping hole in his chest, right where his heart should have been.

Sanbury

"To whoever took all of the clouds--You can keep them!" it said on the large, white billboard by the town hall. The townspeople of Sanbury had put up this angry message to show their indifference to meteorological occurrences and the whims of the flying man, but also because they really liked putting up angry messages on large, white billboards. Of course, there had been a lot of fuss and heated debates on the local news radio station--the disappearance of the clouds above the rooftops of Sanbury had divided the townspeople into two factions: those who believed it to be the mere result of wind patterns and changes in air pressure, and those who blamed the aforementioned flying man.

The flying man was something of a sore spot for the townspeople of Sanbury. About a year ago one of the residents, a businessman, who shall remain unnamed, had suffered a nervous breakdown. But instead of going about it in a decent, responsible manner, such as staying in bed for days, screaming at his family, or hyperventilating, he had taken to flying. According to his neighbors he had leapt right out of his bedroom window, in his business suit and all, had spread his arms and remained suspended in midair, like it was nothing. Then he had done a few circles around the house, almost colliding with little Johnny's kite, and in the end had taken off towards Main Street. There he had crashed into a tree and had to be rescued by firefighters.

Instead of apologizing for his selfish behavior the next morning, the evildoer had relapsed and circled above the town hall building like an awkward vulture. He had yelled that he had found a higher calling. His wife, poor, young thing, had implored him to come down but he wouldn't listen. Ever since, he had been seen flying above town, harassing wild geese and engaging in other aviational misconduct. The residents of Sanbury put up an angry message on the large, white billboard stating that flying was for birds and asses, and then went on with their day. Soon enough they stopped paying attention to the tiny gray figure up above.

When the clouds started disappearing some of the townspeople observed that the flying man was behaving rather strangely; stranger than usual that is. He raced about the sky, the sides of his jacket flapping in the wind, gesturing wildly at the clouds as if to stir them in this direction or that. Of course, it raised suspicion. Still, a good portion of the townspeople maintained the opinion that the flying man was acting in this way on account of being an idiot, not because he was actually trying to abduct the clouds. Wind patterns and changes in air pressure really did seem a lot more plausible to them. In the end, none of the speculations really mattered--the clouds were all gone either way and the flying man floated about, amidst a perfectly blue sky, whether aimlessly or in schadenfreude, no-one could really tell.

Truth be told, the townspeople remained mostly unaffected by the disappearance of the clouds. Of course, there were more cases of sunburn, and some of the rare outdoor plants in the botanical garden dried up and died, but it wasn't the end of the world. Nothing compared to the time everyone in town suddenly started speaking backwards. Now that had truly been a trying week and a half for the town of Sanbury. School had gotten cancelled for a whole week. The townspeople had put up an angry message on the billboard saying "!esnes-non siht rof dnats t'now eW", but it had only made everyone more upset.

No, if anything, most townspeople enjoyed the exceptionally good weather, and stood by the message on the large white billboard, even after one, and two, and three weeks. The drought that ensued didn't bother them too much--they supposed the clouds would come back sooner or later. That's the way things went in the town of Sanbury.


One of the senior center residents did get really upset though. He had already been cranky for the past few weeks, missing his late wife horribly and complaining about his arthritis. When he found out that the clouds were gone, he collapsed onto his bed and burst into tears. The nurses managed to calm him down eventually and when they asked what had upset him so, he blew his nose noisily and told them that he was tired of it all, the town, the flying moron, the times when everyone spoke backwards. And now all the clouds are gone, he continued and made a defeated hand gesture. Mary, she loved the rain, he added after catching his breath again. This--he pointed at the blue sky outside--would have broken her heart. And every morning I wake up and think what if--all these strange things happen in this town after all--what if she came back? After a while one of the nurses inquired shyly if he would want to put up a message on the billboard by the town hall. The old man began sobbing again and wouldn't quiet down for a long time, not even after the flying man came in through the window with some rain in a jar he had snatched from the clouds above one of the neighboring towns. In the end, the townspeople did put up a message on the billboard. It said, "To whoever took Mary Smith--please, bring her back."