I took Creative Writing: Fiction this semester (big stretch, I know hehe) to fill in some elective slots for my major, and I did one short story that someone asked me to share. I don't suppose it's the best thing I've ever written, but it's entertaining at least.
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The Life of Vincent
I live a very comfortable life,
but that has not always been so. Like many others, I have had some bumps in the
road. However, my bumps were all nearly catastrophic disasters. If it weren’t
for the people who came into and out of my life, I would not be sitting here
today.
Personally, I have always liked
myself. I accepted myself for what I am. Not many could say that, so I believed
knowing that gave me a leg up on others around me.
In the home of Mr. Chesterfield, I
lived a rather sedentary lifestyle. I also resided with a dignified individual
named Adelaide. I didn’t believe she liked me very much. She was much older
than I, and visitors seemed to prefer me to her. I couldn’t tell you why this
was. I rather liked her too in addition to myself. Perhaps people were simply
more comfortable with me. She shouldn’t have taken offense, however. She had
several amiable talents. For example, when given the chance, she had the
ability to entertain three times the number of visitors than I could. Still, I
often wondered that if she could say it, she would say, “Vincent, you’re
overstuffed and full of yourself. Why, just look at you! Sitting there in the
corner looking pleased as punch, you’d think you were worthy of a throne room!”
That wasn’t fair. Depending on
the throne room, Adelaide could have fit in quite well. I’d always admired her
Victorian curves. She would have been beautiful set along the aisle, a welcome
site to all who would come upon her. Just the mere comfort she would exude
would be enough to cause even the most skeptical of courtiers to alight upon
her presence, grateful for the small break from the everyday.
As for my own possible privilege
in being worthy of a throne room: Nothing could have been further from the
truth. Sadly, my life had left me looking disheveled and tattered. I would have
no more place in a throne room than a hat box left forgotten in a field before
becoming a home for bees.
Alas, she never knew my
opinion—for we did not speak. Even if, by some miracle, I could have spoken, I
doubt she would have listened. Each of us lacked proper communicative
abilities. That couldn’t be helped, so we tried to make do with what little we
had.
How, do you ask, then did I know
that she didn’t like me? It was the little things. As I’d heard said “the Devil
is in the details” after all. For example, once, a little dog visited the
Chesterfield home, and it left some hairs from its fur on her side. Quick as a
wink, she dispatched those hairs so that they would come to rest upon me.
Smelling the little bits of fur, the little dog then proceeded to relieve
itself upon my leg. Oh, it stank for ages! I know Adelaide was fraught with
merriment in regards to my embarrassing predicament. I couldn’t get the smell
out of the fabric for what felt like months but was actually a few weeks.
Then, there was the episode with
the cat. The vicious monster decided to sharpen its claws up Adelaide’s sides,
doing some very minor damage before Mrs. Chesterfield scolded it into
submission. The cat left Adelaide alone, but the same could not then be said
for me. Just like with the dog, the cat decided it would turn to me when no one
was looking, and it used me for all its future claw-sharpening activities. All
my efforts to dissuade the feline came to nothing. It was a stubborn brute, and
its talons did quite a bit of damage along my back before it was at last sent
away. Afterwards, I never experienced a single day when I missed it.
For employment, I considered
myself a counselor of sorts. People came to me when they wanted to unload their
troubles into my lap. I didn’t mind. In fact, I rather enjoyed the sense of
fulfillment it gave me that I could help. I could, at least, say that I did a
better job at this than my neighbor. Adelaide groaned when, for example, a
woman came along and collapsed against her from losing her latest beau. She
distressed over the mess tears could leave upon her vestments. Also, I believed
her advanced, antique age had made it so that she couldn’t handle the stress
that she once could. Her creaking skeletal structure and groaning only added to
the fact that people preferred me to her, and that wasn’t precisely my fault.
I have always been rather fond of
my most faithful patient, not to mention owner of the house in which I resided,
Mr. Chesterfield. He was an older gentleman, older than I. Every evening, he
would visit me and smoke his pipe. The odor was not unpleasant. I actually grew
rather fond of it. I was sure he appreciated it that I didn’t ask him not to
smoke. I knew for certain that Adelaide would have taken offense, but then,
that only cemented the reasoning behind others’ preference for me.
However, one morning, I heard the
most distressing news. Mr. Chesterfield and his wife had an argument—about me.
Mrs. Chesterfield claimed that her husband needed to quit me. She said that she
had grown tired of the way I looked. She even had the audacity to say she was repulsed
by my smell! They spoke about me as if I weren’t even there.
I have to say, for his sake, that
I admired Mr. Chesterfield for trying to stand up to his wife. After all, it
was from her that he would often escape to me. He tried to convince her that he
needed my companionship, that it was the best part of his day when he could
come home and spend time with me, but she would hear nothing of it.
Sadly, they kicked me to the
curb, leaving me at the mercy of the cruel, cold world. It rained upon my bare
head, reminding me of the short amount of time when Mrs. Chesterfield placed a
crocheted mantle across my shoulders. How I longed for the garment that, sadly,
later got destroyed by the aforementioned cat.
I wondered to myself if the Chesterfields
had replaced me. Did Mr. Chesterfield have anyone he could confide in the way
he once so happily did with me? Would Mrs. Chesterfield crochet something new
for someone else? And how did my Adelaide fare without me? Granted, she never
thought much of me to begin with. She probably didn’t miss me. I hoped my
replacement, if one had been attained, better suited her. Perhaps Mrs.
Chesterfield had managed to find someone to better match her temperament.
Sometimes, trucks would pass by
me much too quickly, sending a spray of filthy water pouring down upon me. The
deluge of water engulfed me before dripping from my sides like weeping tears. I
wished I could cry for I felt so lost, so useless, so ill-used. I often
pondered how anyone could want me in such a rotten condition.
‘I suppose it’s just as well,’ I
thought at the time. If I had happened to have the ability to cry, I wouldn’t
have been able to wipe my tears, just as I couldn’t wipe away the spray of
water every time a truck drove past. You see, I couldn’t move my arms. They
have always been stuck in the same position as they were the day the carpenter
made my frame.
I found it hard to believe that I
only spent one night on the curb, for it felt like a slow eternity in my own
personal purgatory, worried what was to become of my future.
The following morning, the sun
shone brightly, drying my ragged upholstery. I prayed that mold did not set in
for my chances of being reclaimed would have lessened dramatically. No one
would want a moldy old armchair.
To my everlasting delight, I was lifted
from the curb and placed in the back of a truck! At first, I worried I was
headed to the dump, but no! The driver of the truck went to a house full of
young people.
For years, I stayed in my ragged
condition, witnessing the comings and goings of different young adults. They
typically stuck around for four or so years before moving on with their life, going
who knows where. I tried to content myself with the thought that at least I was
still useful, even though I was not as handsome as I once was. I tried not to
yearn for the days when Mr. Chesterfield would come home from work and seek
solace in my lap.
Sadly, my days in the house of
the young people were numbered. During one rowdy evening, my arm got painfully
broken, and not even the members of the youthful household could find any use
for me anymore. Once again, I was placed upon the curb, next to bags of trash
and a ripped bean bag chair.
My life had never known such a
low moment. Surely now, my next step was utter desolation at the city dump,
where I would spend the rest of my days until I fell apart completely.
A few days later, when I felt myself
lifted into the air, I didn’t even stop to wonder where it was that I would go
this time. I already knew. This was the end of my usefulness. I was nothing but
garbage, no better than what filled the cans that were next to me.
The rattling of the truck upon
which I rode filled me with dread as I pondered what lay ahead of me now. Would
I be infested with mice? Would birds come and rip out my innards to use to line
their nests? Would I be simply and cruelly dismembered and burned? I could barely
look when the truck stopped, having reached its destination.
“It’ll do,” I heard a woman’s
voice say. Peering cautiously out at my surroundings, I found myself in a
cluttered garage. A light layer of sawdust covered everything, filling up the
corners and any crevice it could find.
I could not see the owner of the
voice because I had been placed facing the garage door, and she stood at the
door to what I assume was their kitchen. I remembered a similar layout the day
I first arrived at the Chesterfields’.
“I think so. It’s in great
condition. Well, once we strip off that upholstery, fix the arm, and clean out
the rest of it,” the man replied, and the door closed.
I spent a night in the dark
garage, once or twice experiencing a great fright at the squeak of a small
mouse. ‘What would become of me now?’
The following morning, the man
came out and stripped me bare to my frame. My dog-peed, cat-scratched clothing
left me forever. I wouldn’t miss it. I heard the whizzing sound of a buzz saw.
How I wished I could see!
If I could have screamed, I would
have with the next thing that happened. The man from yesterday painfully ripped
away my broken arm. I only had one arm! What good is an armchair with only one
arm!
Suddenly, I had a new, strange
sensation. Aged wood got attached to where my arm once was. I once again wished
I could cry, but this time, they would have been tears of joy. My arm was
repaired! Of course, I was only but a skeleton of my former self, but if this
man could repair my arm, I hoped he could repair the rest of me as well.
Over the next few days, I
experienced nothing but stuffing and pushing and pulling and stretching as I
was carefully rebuilt. I didn’t mind. In fact, my new upholstery closely matched
the original. This master craftsman had saved me from a depressing fate and
wished to use me in his house.
Imagine my surprise that when he
finished that I was not placed into his own living room but once again
carefully lifted into the back of a truck. With an affectionate pat, I was sent
on my way to destination unknown.
If I had a heart, it would have surely
been racing with the anticipation of what lay ahead. Was I going to a furniture
store? Another house? A museum?
I was placed in a sitting room of
a nursing home. I liked the rest of the furniture in that room. There was a
large sofa, a coffee table, a few floor lamps, some potted silk flowers, and a
small chandelier over the coffee table. We all suited one another, and I got
the nicest reception from them. It was like they told me that they were only
waiting for an armchair like me to complete the friendly, homey atmosphere the
room had.
Over the next few months, I
became rather attached to the floor lamp next to me. Lucille was the light of
my new life. With her help, I would many times be the perfect place upon which
to sit and read a book. Sometimes, residents would scoot the two of us over to
the nearby coffee table so that they could put together a puzzle or play a
game. We made a great pair, she and I, certainly much better than my previous,
spiteful relationship with Adelaide. With Lucille’s help, I settled happily
into my new role, never forgetting what might’ve become my fate.
I had several visitors during
that time, and I learned much of the residents in the nursing home. My favorite
times were when family members would come to visit. I would sit and listen to
stories of the outside world. To my delight, one visitor was a woman I
remembered as having been in the house of young adults. Oh, but, of course, she
didn’t recognize me.
“Here we are, sir, this is the
sitting room I spoke of,” a nurse told a patient.
“I remember having a chair just
like this one before my wife passed,” the old man said, and he settled
comfortably between my arms like he had returned to the place he’d always
belonged.
“Will you be needing anything
else, Mr. Chesterfield?”
