The Chair

 THE CHAIR

By Peter Woodgate

You will look at me and think I am normal. A simple wooden ladder-back chair, ten a penny on the market.

I could have been one of those second-hand jobs, stuck outside a junk shop getting wet in the pouring rain.

You would be wrong, even though I say it myself, I am unique.

I have been finely crafted, in specialised wood, and put together with ultimate precision.

In fact, I am destined for stardom, chosen for a career in film. A remake of the Good the Bad and the Ugly.

I don’t have a speaking part but plenty of action. I am looking forward to the part where the saloon temptress sits on me rubbing her hands gently down my sides before sliding her stockings down her legs. She then pulls them seductively over her feet.

Of course, all this paraphernalia is wasted on me but the stranger in town, the chap with the beard smoking a cheroot and leaning on the bar, he really clocks an eyeful.

It appears the lady’s boyfriend takes exception to this and gives the stranger a right hook.

True to form (and the script) the stranger fights back, he’s not a wimp and thinks the temptress ought to be allowed to carry on with the striptease.

Well the fighting gets serious and spills over to other areas of the saloon.

This, unfortunately, causes the young woman to vacate her position on me and seek refuge behind the bar.

The next action is my starring pinnacle as the goodie, as we now know him, you know the one smoking a cheroot, grabs my back and smashes me over the head of Scarface, I end up in a hundred pieces, specifically designed of course. My brief but heroic career will be over. I am destined, it seems, for firewood, but it must be better than ending up, on the pavement, in the rain.

Copyright Peter Woodgate