I Need To Move That Chair

I need to move that chair, I thought for the umpteenth time; or at least, it seemed–it felt like that as I zipped past it going into the kitchen. You see, I had shoved the old chair into the corner of our apartment we never really use, by the backdoor that's usually locked, under the window that's flowering cobwebs from since before we moved in. We just never use that corner. It's in a weird spot. It's out of the corner of my mind. But I guess, that's how it keeps sneaking up on me.

You see, I wanted the ratty thing to live upstairs, in my library space. Up there in the attic crawl with all my books, with the creepy hole in the ceiling that gives way to the vacant black beyond…and every time I go up there, I imagine I see a being of stygian, leaning down, grinning at me wildly with intense eyes. The being is never actually there–I look up every time to catch it. I still look because I fear he will be, peering out from all the broken windows. There's this old carpet up there that always feels…itchy. I usually like it up there.

And when my friend, Effie, first gave me the chair, we were going shopping for her new apartment. She threw open her big truck trunk and there it was: antique, old yellow, the kind that's just barely greenish if you pull it close to your eyes, like overripe fruit. It had the dazzles and everything, little frilling things all over. Wooden lining. Probably cost a couple hundred bucks. I waved my hands in front of my face and said I couldn't. Really. It's beautiful. She shook her head. Laughing. No, please. You'd be doing me a favor.

You see, Effie used to work at a vintage store when she first moved up here. She hated it. Her boss was this racist Trump fucking Boston type, with a scary habit of yelling until she cried. She quit after a year without any real backup plan. Duh. Luckily she was fine–found another, cushier job fast, but anyway, she got this chair from the job at the vintage store, and it had been living in her trunk for another year after that because she didn't know what to do with it.

Please take it. I don't know what to do with it.

You're sure? Cause, I think it'd look great in my library…

The next thing I knew, we were carrying this chair up the stairs, and plopping it in the spare room with a thud. But, you see, the spare room was in the process of being repainted, because we were having this new girl move in any day now and our old roommates had painted the damn room black. So, with not much choice but to repaint, our new roommate had laid tape and paper along the nice wood so that she wouldn't get paint everywhere, and at standing the room had a clean, fresh first coat. So the chair couldn't stay in the room. And I didn't want to make Effie help me bring it up to the attic, because the attic had these stairs that lurched straight up, and you really need a pulley to bring furniture up those things safely. Every time our landlord walks up or down them he sings Thank God I don't drink anymore!

So when Wendy came around the next day to finish off the paint job, I decided to just shove it in the corner with the cobwebs and creaky door. Just push it out of the way until I wanna carry it up the evil stairs.

You see, a lot of people I meet say that I'm haunted. And it's really never in a bad way, just a truly factual way. Like how some people like to state the time, the weather, their love of God. These things that just are. I have had so many people say this matter of fact to me that I must wholeheartedly believe it. And it's not surprising that they feel this way, I guess, I probably could have come to the same conclusion without the aid. Things that go missing and reappear in impossible spots. Creaks and groans and bangs in the walls around me. Weird dreams. Just the vibes of a space I'm occupying. My mother used to say that ghosts follow me. They followed your grandmother, too, she'd say, matter of factly. When my sister came over a few weeks ago, my partner was complaining about weird, ghostly behavior in the space, and she said, matter of factly, They follow Brandi. We all laughed.

I guess that brings us to now. For the past couple of days, everytime I have seen the chair out of the corner of my eye, I see a man, crouched in on himself in a hoodie, his arms up and tucking his head in low, real low, so that I can not see his face. And I see this same man every time. Crunched up and hiding. And then he's gone.

Last night I saw him so strongly that I jumped and screamed. I slept with the light on in the hallway. I tried to tell myself It's just the shape of the chair, or I'm just seeing things, but its happened so many times and these so many times feel so real.

There is a strange pull to this age. Perhaps the odor of past lords, the sweat and magnetism of the human body. The human soul. Maybe they didn't speak in Effie's car, but in my house, they want to make themselves known.

Or maybe, I'm crazy.

I think I make spirits feel comfortable. I think I make animals and babies feel the same. I don't know what it is. I don't think I'm particularly nice, or generous. I'm not rich or very interesting. I think it must be innate. Or maybe there's something in me that is special.

Is that crazy?

I wish I could ask my grandma.

But you see, she was also crazy. She was very crazy and deeply somewhere else a lot of the time.

She was the best. She was a lot like me. She had this same weird pull. This pep in our steps.

But she isn't here anymore. So I must come to some bizarre conclusions.