Grab yourself a cup of coffee, find your favourite piece of furniture, and be seated.
There’s the one with the hard yet smooth arms and the scratchy cushions.
Or the yellow one with square cushions in Oma’s basement that was surprisingly comfortable for naps.
And then the one that survived a tornado, many decades old and ripped, but well loved. And then the one with the knitted afghan covering its surface.
Some, sofa beds, that pull out and some that do not.
Chesterfield: a town in England or a word I’ll always connect with my grandparents from a different generation. Sofa. Loveseat, like a bike I can ride, built for only two.
I slept many a time on such a small space, but more small for others than for me as I never did grow tall, like all those whose feet would hang off and dangle.
The long ones or the L-shaped ones or the sectional in my brother’s living room that the kids are always being warned not to jump on.
Or the one I spent sick day after sick day on, when some thought I was faking sick to get out of school, because nobody could or should miss that many days of sixth grade.
I did jump off that one, landing on an ankle, spraining it – injury coming before illness.
All those bowls of salty chicken noodle soup I ate there, listening to soap operas through the stereo speakers. All the awful days of nausea and fatigue I just couldn’t fight and all the surgeries recovered from, on either side of the L.
The velvety one, bought at yard sale, meant for college. Ending up in Toronto, sleeping on the separate segments it came in, waking up in the night to one sliding away from the other to reveal a crack down to the floor.
Heavy, wooden frame and a bed into sitting position, a futon doesn’t really count as one, but I thought (at eighteen) it was cool I could have both couch and bed in my own bedroom that I had always had to share with my older sister.
The set I purchased as new furniture with my sister after buying a house, that came with armchair of same fake leather and three glass coffee tables. I’m no longer that weak, unwell little girl, but a grown woman on her own.
Tears in the material and it was first to go. I still have that armchair though.
He found me a colleague’s no longer needed set, including loveseat, of green fabric I believe it was. Scratched up said colleague’s truck, used to move said furniture, but the loveseat still sits here today, as part of my current mismatch of living room furnishings. The loveseat is my dog’s place now, and he’s always unsure just what to do when someone comes over and dares sit on it.
And, finally, I start a short story (eventually to go into an anthology and my first story in print) about my current
couch
that I hope will last for a while yet, even with the origin so unforgettable.
Recliners on each end, but feeling more like the seats from the minivan we had growing up than a living room couch. We did used to detach the middle van seat and leave it in the garage or down in our basement, to make room for hauling things or kids (back when seat belts were less mandatory).
Now the one I bought it with is no longer around, the splitting of things during the breakup, but I kept this minivan seat couch. It already has small holes all over it and I hoped, when I got him, that my cat wouldn’t scratch it and destroy it before its time.
You know, Lumos, you can just jump up onto it instead of digging your claws into it and climbing up.
People sit here, where I so often write, and leave with cat hair all over them, but I love my couch.
And so, once more, I find safety and comfort on my couch. So I must wrap up this post because now all I can think to write that involves this week’s prompt word is a children’s show that played in paediatric hospitals, when I was often in them (stuck playing the waiting game rather than Hungry Hungry Hippos): a show about a big, comfy couch (I forget the name of that show). Blaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
Her Headache 