Free Loveseat

Every other night, I notice the variation of kipple that loiters—the many monuments littering the city—of every single different kind of leather chair, plush recliner, and loveseat, and Art Deco sofa, many of which end up abandoned, deteriorating the crumbling, and most definitely paper-thin, sidewalks of the street. They rest discarded, like departed souls, or perhaps, the poor souls of Black folk, neglected by the bluest of eyes. Of all of the rubbish, chairs are my fancy. There’s a lot of character in the shape of a chair; the subtle curves especially remind me of the night women who stand on the curb.

I peer through a hole in the concrete slabs, revealing a network of lime-tarnished copper piping in the basement of what appeared to be a bank from the towering glass façade that scraped the sky. Through these cracks, a separate space—these vies privées—unbeknownst to the pedestrian strolling the streets, lay still until dust bunnies erupt into beasts.

Most chairs are broken; in fact, many lack any support, making them unbearable to sit on, let alone in. They’re caked in dust, like old buttercream frosting, thick as it’s layered heavily like mortar. The artists tend to favor the more extreme, bizarre shapes that contort and bend the figure nestled inside, as if they weren’t meant to be comfortable, nor pleasant for the human form.

I, myself, preferred the mid-century cloth fabric with its flowery designs and midnight backgrounds, which masked the years of smoke that had been absorbed by the once mothball fibers, now settled, leaving behind a raw, formaldehyde smell that burned the nostrils. These old beauties, barnacle-stricken whales, lie in the corners of the shoe-clankering brownstone with each twelve-shoe that stomps every step to every tear shed onto the craven oak wood floors.

The disturbed habits of motorists had yet to erupt, echoing from alleyways, parkways, and sleepy boroughs before shocking the neighborhood alive like cockroaches revealed by artificial, hot white light. As early as the worms that break from the moist night soil, I hunt down these pale, mangled corpses like a white-backed vulture; a meal to feast on for later—acidic, bubbling pools of bile rumble and blister into putrid ulcers in the lining of my stomach. There, in the belly of my apartment, only I can make them whole, purposeful, unlike the discarded remains of old chicken bones.

The sewers' plumes of smoke rose and hugged my figure as I inspected my fraying corpses. Apart from design, arms and legs were frequently split or lost, destined for the pasture ahead on a trip to the landfill. My eyes wandered. My hands caressed. I flipped up flaps and inspected the internals; stray webs droop from the inside like laticework. Free of rodents and pests, free of loose debris. I scurried from every step and street. On one corner, my eyes grew wide, elated at the belated birthday that I am experiencing before me.

My hand caressed the plush velvet of an oblong loveseat with divets and curves, plump in the center like a pillow. I felt down the legs, free of splits and scratches. I inspected the underside free of pests. The color left little more to be desired; its cerulean blue resembled the deepest hydrothermal pools that bubbled this brilliant blue, but in the lamplight, its painter’s tape blue twinkled with dew.

I pressed into its flesh; the sticky dew clung to my hand. A growing warmth filled my abdomen, the churning of my own stuffing, as sweat seeped from my pores and clung to my forehead. She was the one.

In my apartment, my lovely lay across the floor, showing its belly like a submissive puppy. Its internals were exposed, leaving the yellowing foam inside free to breathe the still, centralized air, save for the sewer stench that had intruded before. Carefully, I carved away at the flap that would allow me to experience its shape in its truest form. I inspected and measured the available space before trimming away the layers of foamy fat that had accumulated from the previous owner. Bits and slivers of urid yellow and chunks of gray, like fatty deposits, clung to the seams of fleshy material before being tossed into the trash.

The only essence that remained was the remnants of the previous owner's engagements; the smell broke into the plush, but was evidently invisible to the faintest inkling of even myself. Oh, the poor bastard who hasn’t the time to enjoy the pleasures of a good sofa. I considered the potential bachelor, fantasizing about the fornications that lay bare before me in the material.

I felt my blood pool in my cheeks and sweltering forehead droop like excess skin; the light before me shrouded in the caverns of my lovely loveseat. With each carving and scraping of the fat, the labor demanded more attention, as if I were Dr. Frankenstein, creating life anew; I wiped away at my flesh before departing from my masterpiece. Such was the allure of euphoria.

I rushed past the stairwell, hugging the railing as I swung to the door. I peered through the peephole and watched the schools of chubs being shepherded across the gray gruel grass. What a high I felt, as I clambered the door open and felt the sewer spray splash the street. The sun had risen. I looked up; my window had swung open.

My shoes clapped against the brownstone steps with glee as I heaved my lovely lady loveseat from the floor, her figure wrapped around my chest. My muscles ached as her weight suffocated me like a torturous punishment; my veins bulged as if they were intoxicated with the rush of a racehorse, heaving plumes of smoke from my lungs out of the brownstone doorway. In my upheaval, I trampled down the steps and onto the pedestrian fareway; their eyes beset by me, this Sisyphean fool carrying his furniture down the block. Had he gone mad?

For the fever lifted my chest as if with helium, as they swelled like lead balloons. I meandered down the street before the next borough; these genial folk have yet to discard their rubbish at the measly curb. These old townhouses were filled with granny’s old money, plastic-wrapped homes, fresh for the new money clientele moving in. Their alleyways were still and silent as a poor man’s funeral; his body lay unclaimed by the masses.

I found a comfy niche between two creamstone townhouses, their wrought iron fences twisted and twirled like ballerinas caught in flight. I laid my lovely loveseat down. The soft pallor of an old gas light illuminated the curt world before me, that I would soon abandon for another, more private affair, to which I—

—I mustn’t continue this kerfuffle any longer. The slits of light will catch her morning dew in between the quiet rocking dwellings. I parted the flap and entered.

While my frame was meek and thin, the space to breathe was curt as I slithered inside like a snake searching for its den, burrowing into the deepest recesses of every surface. It breathed as I breathed, as if we were one being, contorted to fit the shape of another. My face was pressed against one of the seats where the fabric wasn’t completely stitched down to the bottom. Sliding my arm against my chest, I felt the foam embrace me as I reached for the flap at the end.

With the gangly curl of a nail, it cut away the taut, silk string woven into the fabric, leaving behind a trail of holes where the string looped and strangled the fabric against soft felt. I felt the faint pressings and prodings of the flesh of the loveseat, as if inspecting my organs in an operating room. Had a precocious prospect washed up on my seaswept shore?

Their whisperings snickered as they circled me like scavenging dogs—hyenas cackling in the morning hour to break fast. I felt a primal fear of flight, which rushed to my senses through the foam, embracing me with such force that it was holding me back. It was almost a blue translucent out-of-body requiem, as if I were experiencing a ceremony, their language and whisperings in tongues.

I felt their presence lift me, like God’s son, dragged on his way to the stake; the springs driving into my flesh as I was shuffled through doorways and hallways. The miasma of moans and groans sang like lost souls, trapped in the river Styx. They heaved and sighed. They dragged and pulled; the scraping of wood against wool and wood grains shrieks and tears. A great weight fell on my chest, pressing the gusto from my lungs into the felt. It rocked and stretched; it chuckled and laughed before rising, their worries trailing out of the chamber.

Once liberated, I squirmed out, as if I were a delicate moth tearing away at its mother’s precious silk cocoon. Hot, I admired the discreet façade on the end. It felt like the new owner might stick this end outward, to face the guest, whereas my entrance lay toward the back, concealed by the corner it’ll soon occupy.

The chamber was painted with maroon like a hunter’s blood pie. Paintings of men in lace and noir adorned the walls alongside wood panels of romans. It reeked of cigars and crisp pollen as I wandered the decaying space. The adjacent furniture was planted among flowering pale tulips. One was rustic, velvet cake, round like a woman’s heart. I sat upon it and felt the length of the various cuts of blankets; the cloth texture was as rich as flan as I melted in the plush.

The ceiling was painted in amber light, surrounded by midnight jazz blues. My eyes wandered to the hallway’s spirited lamplight, flickering mischievously like a will-o’-the-wisp. I heard their distant banter call, cackling like witches before their cauldron, but they bellowed with glee. I returned to my den, squirming through the foam, my sweat fleeing from my pores in droves. It felt like being passed through the soft belly of a whale, sweltering in the gripping, tender flesh of another.

“This piece would fetch a good price at auction—I’m tellin’ ya,” a young voice erupted.

A faint weight pressed near my chest. “I think it’d look better in the other room.”

A low voice remarked. “Perhaps. We don’t even know who made it.” They stood naturally, as if resting beside their worries.

The faint weight moved closer to me, and they felt the underside; their nails scraped against the tag. “Ain’t got a name.”

The young voice fell, defeated. “If ya want to keep it, it’s cool.” Their shoes dragged against the carpet fibers.

My breath was tepid, moist between the hairs in my nostrils. The low voice was silent, and the faint weight rose; the footsteps were as quiet as a murmur across the floor. A weight reclined deep into the oblong shape, being embraced by my figure as if we were one.

It felt primordial. Otherworldly. Had this been the tenderness my mother spoke of?

My tears shed like pine needles, pricking my flesh. I didn’t whimper, nor whine. I endured as my child cradled my contorted figure. Their palpable breath smelled like rich tobacco. The plague on their teeth and tongue seeped through the foam like a putrid public restroom left to decay. The bacteria that remained fermented, spreading like spores and growing into colonies of esoteric life in the moist underbelly of their furniture.

The weight lifted and departed from the chamber; the cold hallway filled with whimpers as the colony grew around me. Their roots entangle around my fingers and arms, restraining me inside the belly of my lovely loveseat. The whimpers grew into crying, scowling as if their love had departed before the midnight hour, an arrangement deferred. I felt my lungs heave as I struggled to inch closer to the flap. My eyes raced back and forth from the cancerous cordyceps splintering from my members to my chest; my hand gripping my sunken chest seizes—my head ceased, forcing me toward my chest, my tongue free.

My body curled into a fetal form; the muscles in my legs stretched, bending past my corpse like frog legs just before takeoff, my spine shattering into the thousands of particulate matter of the Milky Way galaxy; the subtle crack of a chair leg accompanied. My pupils enlarged, and my vision was soft like condensation clinging to a camera lens. I scratched my eyes. It burned.

The crying rang like screams of those alone in the ghetto; the window shattered, and the moonlight illuminated the shards that remained like a spider’s glassine web. I felt trapped in that web. My world had shattered. I felt alone in its belly. My mouth stretched open as I tried to gasp for air, but my mouth remained agape, crooked. The cordyceps anchored to my writhing pale tongue and crawled down my throat, and through my nasal cavity, and through every orifice of my head until I was shriveled of moisture. One with the flesh of the lovely loveseat. I’d say my corpse resembled the wilted, earthy sun-kissed skin of a Mexican petunia in August.

I’m alone no more.

I’m one with the spore.