If Furniture Could Talk - 1. Charlie the Chatty Chair

Damn, that was a long trip for a baby. OK, so I’m not exactly a baby. But I had only been built for a few hours when they loaded me into this huge dark box. I know I’m a Queen Anne chair, but there’s another tag on me that says, ‘Inspected by 12.’ It looks like someone wrote Charlie on it. I guess that’s my name. I’ve been wrapped in plastic and riding in this box for what seems like days.

What? I don’t have a watch, so I’m just guessing. It’s dark in here. I know I’m not alone, but almost nobody else seems to want to talk. I can just make out Otto Mann, he’s an ottoman. I guess that makes sense. He’s the only one who’s said a word to me. Wait! Why aren’t I an Anne?

Anyway... shit, that’s bright! They just peeled open one end of the box. There are more pieces of furniture. Wait! Are they all my family? Some of them are getting taken off. I hope I get to go with them. Six of my siblings have been taken off. They’re unpeeling the end. How is that even possible? Darn. Like a quarter of my family just disappeared. And I never even got to meet them. Well, there’s still almost twenty of us left in here. I guess we’re all going to a different home.

Wow! I must have dozed off there for a bit. It’s bright again, but not as bright as before. Yippee! They’re moving me. I’m getting taken off. Otto’s coming with me. At least I’ll have one acquaintance, if not a friend, wherever we’re going. Or is it brother?

Wow! This place is huge. There have to be a thousand of us here. There are chairs like me, and really fat chairs. I see sofas, tables, some things kind of halfway between a fat chair and a sofa.

“Hey you! Really wide fat chair, what’s your name?”

"I’m Beige Love Seat, what’s yours?”

“Charlie. Hey, can I ask what you are?”

“Are you stupid or something? I’m a love seat.”

“Well, excuse me all to hell. I’m Charlie. I’m a Queen Anne Chair.”

“Then that’s your name. Don’t know where you’re getting Charlie from.”

“It’s on my tag.”

“Idiot thinks her inspector’s name is hers.”

“Wait, I’m a girl?”

“You ain’t a King Anne or Prince Anne chair, are you? Rookies.”

“Rookie?”

“You just came in, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That makes you, the two ottomans, and your two sisters all rookies.”

“Sisters?”

“The other two Queen Annes that came in with you.”

“If we have the same name, how can we know who is who?”

“I don’t know. Ask George Foreman.”

“Who? What? I’m confused.”

"You're mauve, one of your sisters is burgundy, the last is floral. Add those to your names and you're different."

"So, I'm Mauve Queen Anne Chair?"

"Yeah."

"I still like Charlie better. Do we get another home, or is this it?"

"Well, for the most part, we go somewhere else. Old Rocking Chair over there has been here the longest. How long is that again, Rocky?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"He doesn't like to be called Rocky. I could have called you Splinters, old man. That's why nobody wants you."

Rocky/Splinters resumed his quiet, hopeless wait for a real home.

"So, what's this place called, Love?"

"It's a warehouse."

"Isn't that where you can pick up prostitutes?"

"What would you do with a prostitute? And that's a whorehouse."

"Oh. I didn't know. How do we get moved?"

"Someone orders you at a Finest Furniture store, and you get sent to their house."

"Where is that?"

"You won't know until someone wants you. I hope they don't advertise you using your most obvious characteristic."

"What's that?"

"You never shut up!"

"Geez, I'm just trying to figure things out, none of the other rookies are saying anything."

Tan Otto Mann spoke up, "That's because you won't let the rest of us get a word in edgewise."

"Hmmmph."

I quieted down. It wasn't long before a man wheeling a flat cart came in.

"Oooh. Oooh, that's the mover," said an end table.

"The mover?"

Love Seat interjected, "She who never shuts up speaks again. Hey mover! Take the Mauve Queen Anne, please?"

Coffee Table observed, "Holy foam stuffing. He listened to you."

"Wait! Put me down! Where are you taking me?"

Grandfather Clock rang out, "They can't hear you. Although anywhere but here would be greatly appreciated."

California King Mattress noticed something, "Why is it a rookie that gets taken out so often, while the rest of us wait?"

None of the pieces of furniture had an answer for that.

A few hours later, I arrived at the Dahlonega Finest Furniture store.

"Put it in the back, the customer canceled the order."

The truck driver mumbled, "Bust my ass carrying this ugly thing, and then they don't want it."

"Ugly? OW!!!"

The driver bumped me against a wall, "Watch what you're doing!"

A few minutes later, the automatic timer kicked in and the lights went out in the store's back room.

"Great. I'm in the dark again."

"You should be happy. Out there, they put you under a light, it's so bright it makes us start to fade."

"Who said that?"

"Me, Leather Lazy Boy."

"Where are you?"

"Above you. Up on a shelf."

"Hope you're not afraid of heights."

"Yeah, that would be bad, but, no, I'm not."

"OK. What do we do for fun?"

That generated a plethora of laughter.

Leather spoke again, "We don't have fun. Now shut up and let us all go back to sleep."

Three days later, boring for Charlie because everybody stopped talking to him/her, about ten pieces of furniture were either sold and went elsewhere or got moved to the showroom. Then, it was Charlie’s turn.

“Whoa! She’s cute. Put her next to me!”

“Get real, Blonde Tall Boy Dresser, she’s going to the hoity toity living room section. You’re gonna have to wait for a nightstand or something.”

“I’d love to have a one-night stand with you, Cherry Mirrored Dresser.”

“In your dreams. Dumb-ass.”

I was brought to a section of the room, a really big room, by the way, with a rose sofa, chairs, and I guess a love seat.

The sofa apparently liked me, "Oooh. Put her next to me... Drat!"

I got put down between the love seat and another chair, a fat chair.

"Welcome to the 'nobody wants us section.' I'm guessing your name is Mauve Queen Anne Chair. Rose Armchair here, pleased to meet you."

"Thanks, same here. Nobody wants us?"

"Yeah, they put these numbers on us all, and they're so much bigger than everyone else like us has. I guess it scares the customers away."

"How long have you been here?"

"One hundred and seventy-five times it gets dark."

"That sounds like a long time."

"Yeah."

Sofa woke up, "Ooh, ooh, someone's coming over."

I was curious, "What's that with her?"

"That's a who. And you'd better hope he doesn't sit on you. It looks like he could smash you into pieces."

"Yeah. Hey you! Fat guy! Sit on the fat chair! Nooo! Get awa... Mmmmff, mmmfffff."

"I sure hope she doesn't break. It was nice seeing someone new join us."

"Craaaaaack!!!"

"OWWWWW FUCK!!!! He broke my arm!!!!"

Fat man spoke up, "Oh, no. Um, salesman? I've had a little accident here."

"Little? My arm has been dismembered, and he calls it a little accident."

The salesman answered the fat man, "Oh, that's okay, sir. These things happen."

"Okay? Okay? I think one of my legs is loose too. Rose family, what's going to happen to me?"

Sofa looked sad, "We don't really know, but if one of us gets broken, they almost never come back out."

"You don't mean?"

"We suspect euthanasia, but nobody knows for sure."

Sofa was wrong. They just took me outside and threw me on a pile with other broken furniture.

"Can any of you pieces talk?"

"We can, but why should we? We're just left out here to rot until they decide to make the pile of us smaller."

"Where do the ones go that get taken away?"

"That building to your right, the one with the smoke coming out the top."

"Smoke? You don't mean?"

"Yep, when you're dried out enough, you'll get burned up."

"But I've only been around for a short time. I'm too young to die!"

"Every once in a while, a guy comes around and takes away some of us that look like they're still in pretty good shape. If he comes before it rains, you might get saved."

"What's your name?"

"I used to be Oak Dining Room Table, but my legs have already been taken away to get burned. I guess I'm just Mostly Flat Oak Tabletop, now."

"I'm sorry you lost your legs. That's one of my arms laying on that mushy thing."

"Yeah, he used to be Ivory Sectional, but he's been out in the rain a few times. He got too wet to burn, so they just leave him there."

"That's sad. But I guess getting wet is better than getting burned."

Ivory disagreed, "It's not. I get to die a slow death out here. I'd rather get burned so it was finally over."

"I'm sorry man."

"Thanks. Things like this happen all over though. Old furniture just left to rot. I've heard of this thing called a landfill; miles and miles of all sorts of junk, just rotting away. If you're there long enough; you can end up buried under other junk. Landfill, shmandfill. It's furniture hell."

"That doesn't really happen, does it?"

"Nobody knows for sure whether furniture hell exists or not. We all just hope we never get taken there."

This is a sad pace. I hope I don't have to stay here too long.

Three times getting dark later, a man got out of a truck that kind of looked like what brought me to the store, but it's all open in the back.

"Hmmm, that's a really nice piece. I can fix that up and it'll fetch a pretty penny. Where's the arm?"

"Over there! Over there! Just look. Come on, see it. I don't want to die here."

"Got ya!"

He carried my arm to the truck. He's not just taking that, is he?

"No! Don't get back in the truck! Come back!"

"He's just bringing the truck closer. You're getting out of here Mauve."

Oak was right. I got picked up and put in the back of the truck.

"What's this? That's a pretty decent tabletop. I wonder where the legs are."

"You might get saved too, Oak!"

"Nobody wants a table without legs. He'll leave without me."

The truck guy looked all around the pile, "No legs. It'll be a good project. I'll make more legs, stain them to match."

He knocked on Oak, "Still solid, hasn't been rained on yet, or at least not too much."

"Yay! Oak. He's bringing you over too."

"Looks like it's both our lucky days, Mauve. Bye everybody. Good luck! Maybe someone else will come and save you."

"Bye." "Lucky bastards." "Good luck to you both."

Well, I guess them having mixed emotions about a couple of us getting saved is fair. We weren't in the truck too long before we were brought to another place. It was a room a lot smaller than the whor... I mean warehouse and store. There were a couple other chairs there, but I didn't want to look for too long. They were naked.

"Hey! New guys! Welcome to the workshop!"

I was curious, "Workshop? Is Oliver Twist here?"

"That's workhouse, and no. But that guy that brought you in fixes a lot of us."

Naked Chair was right. I got my arm reattached. Oak got four brand new, really nice-looking legs. Even the Naked Chairs got stained, so they weren't naked anymore. They looked a lot like Oak Tabletop. I was brought into another building and placed into another wide-open room. One by one the others from the workshop came in. Oak Dining Room Table was brought in with his new legs. Then every couple dark times, one of the chairs was brought in until all six of them were there.

"Yep, I'm glad I kept these pieces. I can keep the Queen Anne on this side of the living room; the finish is a perfect match to the table and chairs now. It looks like they were made to all be together."

So, Oak, his six adopted chairs, and I spent a large number of our days with the man from the truck. I'd say it was close to ten thousand dark times before the man wasn't there anymore. The woman that lived there with him sat on me crying a lot after we stopped seeing him. Then, another thousand or so dark times and we didn't see her any longer. I got brought to another house, I learned that's what we were in. I never saw the Oak family again, but I hoped they found another nice home and family like I did.

Except for that damn little one that likes to climb on me and jump off. I swear, if he breaks me, I'll make myself a splinter and see how he likes getting stabbed with it. Most of the family is nice, but that Devlin Balor, he could fry his ass with the microwave, and it wouldn't bother me a bit.