The old Armchair
Candy Yang (11)
An armchair
Old, comfortable and a majestic style
In the window of an antique store
Next to the bus stop I go everyday
The tag on it shows its expensive price
Everyday I look at it
Everyday I think
Who had this grand chair once belonged to?
Maybe it had belonged to a member of the royal family
Days after days he would sit on it
And make commands to his servants and slaves
This was his favourite chair
Because the beautiful carving gives him the feeling of power
The armchair might have once belonged to a rich merchant
When he has parties he would sit on it and laugh at jokes
Slowly he used up all his money and he sold all his valuables
But not the armchair, it is an heirloom
Or it might have belonged to a famous author
I can imagine him, an old man with wrinkles,
When he writes, his sleeves rub against the armchair
And soon it will worn away
He would be proud when he wins an award
He would tell everyone the armchair is his best friend
It had companied him through many dark nights
and so has his pipe
It could have even belonged to a poor musician
He would sit on it every single day
And he would try and find
The song of his miserable heart
It might have belonged to no one
Sitting in a quiet hall everyday
It was very lonely, just as it is now
As a chair, it didn’t succeed in its mission
Today as I was staring at this old-fashioned chair
I heard the shrieking of a fire engine
When it passed me the lights of its alarm
Reflected in the store’s window
The complicated colours almost blocked the view of the chair
An old Chinese philosopher has once quoted
All things in the world are illusions
Does this old armchair exist?
Did those people who sat on it exist before?
Yes or no?
What about history then?
The last question appeared to me
As I showed my ticket to the smiling bus driver
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(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation