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Mr.
Chairman By Ken
Shiovitz Certainly, the bronze metallic chair was solidly built, Legs and struts fashioned from stout tubes of aluminum, Flattened from press, and punctured by diamond-tipped steel
bit, Firmly bolted through inch long welds to lock-washer
rigidity. He had never thought of it as anything but reliable
furniture, Part of a set of four, surrounding the simple brown Formica
table, Arrayed symmetrically beneath a single suspended light
bulb. Much later he would recline into black leather and
mahogany, Facing executives, with formal suit jacket and tightly
knotted tie, Enjoying selected comforts at the cost of lost dreams, Retracing forest pathways, while crossing city streets. He recalled that the bronze metallic chair was a
hand-me-down, Donated incidentally from parental storage to hopeful
newlyweds, Transported nearly seven hundred miles by professional van, Sealed through customs, and bound for a city where they
call it a siege. But on the return trip, they had silently driven a rental
truck, With only three aluminum chairs stowed insecurely inside. He remembered how the businessmen spoke a foreign language, “You’ve got to make a dollar every day,” they laughed. Before he had learned to replace one dream with another, He serenely spent their savings to complete his work, And then one sweaty summer evening, in isotonic slow
motion, He pressed one formerly functional bronze metallic chair
into a pancake. |
