{"id":7533,"date":"2026-05-30T00:13:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=7533"},"modified":"2026-05-30T00:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:13:06","slug":"howards-sixteen-chairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=7533","title":{"rendered":"HOWARD’S SIXTEEN CHAIRS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scott<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0I’m back again with another new short story.\u00a0 The last one I had written was\u00a0“HOW ABOUT YOU, DELBERT ROBINSON?”<\/a> which I posted on February 27th.\u00a0 That story had taken me six months to write, having started it in August of last year.\u00a0 Before that, I had written\u00a0THE POCKET PAL\u2019S GUIDE TO MURDER<\/a> which I posted on June 9th of last year but had taken me over a month to complete.\u00a0 In between, I had written my annual Christmas story,\u00a0THE TWO AND TEN\u2026A CHRISTMAS GIFT EXCHANGE<\/a> and posted it on December 20th.\u00a0 I believe that story was completed in two days.\u00a0 My new story, “Howard’s Sixteen Chairs,” was written in four days.\u00a0 That’s some kind of record for me, given the length of it. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0My current story is based on a radio conversation I heard this past weekend while driving up to Pembroke, Ontario for an MRI on my prostate.\u00a0 Everything is good, thank you for asking.\u00a0 I heard a conversation of two radio personalities talking about the male counterpart having sixteen chairs in a one bedroom condo.\u00a0 Once you read the story, you’ll understand why I had to take the challenge.\u00a0 I asked ChatGPT’s opinion on the story after I wrote it.\u00a0 I didn’t take any advice from ChatGPT but I did ask it to make an illustration for the story based on my suggestions.\u00a0 Here’s the illustration (click on it for a larger version):\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Howard's<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s my new story:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

HOWARD\u2019S SIXTEEN CHAIRS<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

BY<\/h4>\n

SCOTT HENDERSON<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Howard Morgan owned sixteen chairs.\u00a0 The realization that Howard Morgan owned sixteen chairs was never questioned by Howard Morgan.\u00a0 He\u2019d had them so long, being an accumulation over time, that he never gave it any real thought as to how many chairs was too many.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The thing about the sixteen chairs that might have been concerning to anyone was that Howard Morgan lived all alone in a one bedroom apartment.\u00a0 Oh, there was the cat, as well, if Howard came to think about it but, as he failed to contemplate the multitudinous number of chairs, he rarely factored the cat into the equation.\u00a0 There had been a dog before the cat and a dog before that dog and other previous dogs that probably constituted a multitudinous of canines if Howard\u2019s memory served him correctly.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The issue with the dogs always boiled down to Howard\u2019s insistence that they get down off the chair.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter which chair it was because the dogs were not discerning.\u00a0 The cat however was and lay wherever it damn well pleased.\u00a0 Still, with sixteen chairs, it became somewhat of a battle with the dogs and Howard became discerning himself, tired of the conflict, and relegated himself to being a cat person after the last of the dogs had died off.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The cat\u2019s favourite place for repose, of course, was whichever chair Howard gravitated towards at any given moment.\u00a0 Howard believed the cat had a sense that way.\u00a0 It was annoying.\u00a0 If Howard wanted to sit in his electric recliner he had to move the cat.\u00a0 If the cat was in Howard\u2019s favourite chair at the table, Howard had to relocate himself and leave the cat be.\u00a0 If there were a magazine on a particular chair that Howard hadn\u2019t finished reading then he\u2019d be sure to find the cat stretched out on top.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There were sixteen chairs in the apartment.\u00a0 There were two recliners.\u00a0 The electric one was for Howard and the cat.\u00a0 The manual reclining version with a pull handle was for guests.\u00a0 Howard felt that he didn\u2019t need a sofa.\u00a0 He never had that many guests and besides, he didn\u2019t want to become one of those people who stretched out on the couch and fell asleep only to waken to a test pattern on the television or the volume too loud on the late, late, late, extremely late, early tomorrow morning movie.\u00a0 He also feared he might wake some night to a concerning heaviness in his chest only to discover that the cat was snuggled atop him.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In addition to the recliners there were six chairs around his kitchen table.\u00a0 Howard often thought he could get by with four but he didn\u2019t want to break up the set.\u00a0 He\u2019d had it for years.\u00a0 The blue formica top dinette with metal legs and vinyl padded seats on the chairs had belonged to his parents.\u00a0 It had weathered the years well.\u00a0 There was the odd coffee cup ring that never scrubbed away but Howard didn\u2019t mind.\u00a0 He set mugs on top of the stains and no one noticed.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The yellow mug with the image of a duck always sat in one particular location and was only ever used when serving coffee to his friend, Gila.\u00a0 Howard invited his neighbour in a few times a week and she always sat in the same chair and drank from the same cup.\u00a0 Howard kept an overly large leather bound dictionary on the chair to prevent the cat from taking the spot.\u00a0 Before Gila arrived, Howard would remove the dictionary and make some version of the same joke to the cat.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe word of the day is \u2018don\u2019t\u2019.\u00a0 As in, don\u2019t sit on Gila\u2019s chair.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cToday\u2019s word is \u2018no\u2019.\u00a0 No, this seat is not for you. \u201c<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cPage 338, second column, fourteenth word down, \u2018Good.\u2019 Let\u2019s use it in a sentence.\u201d Howard would point at the chair and say \u201cGila, Good.\u00a0 Cat, not so good.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gila was Howard\u2019s best friend.\u00a0 He liked her just as much as the cat.\u00a0 At least she wasn\u2019t a chair thief.\u00a0 Gila only ever sat in one spot.\u00a0 It was eight steps inside his door and when you\u2019re blind, like his friend Gila, the constant location of a familiar seat goes a long way.\u00a0 The fact that she was blind also prevented her from commenting on Howard\u2019s fifteen other chairs which lulled him into sensing sixteen was probably not an inordinate number.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It just never came up.\u00a0 Well, not in a long time.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There had been the Tuesday evening poker game when the six chairs surrounding the table were taken up by Howard and other men.\u00a0 That was a long time ago, at least as far as Howard and the cat were concerned.<\/h4>\n

No one from the poker group ever commented on the quantity of chairs.\u00a0 It was their contents that focussed the conversation.<\/h4>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got a nice collection of books, Howard,\u201d one poker buddy would say while commenting on the piles covering two chairs lining one side of the living room.\u00a0 They were the small wooden kind that students used with their desks when Howard was younger.\u00a0 He had rescued them from his old alma mater primary school before it was torn down.\u00a0 He was a sentimentalist that way.<\/h4>\n

Another chum would comment on the stacks of records on another location.\u00a0 Howard had purchased two blue plastic chairs at a yard sale down the block.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t needed them but two boxes of records were perched on the chairs and Howard had made a bundle deal.\u00a0 It saved him from cluttering his apartment with shelves.\u00a0 He consolidated his records to one large stack on one of the chairs and a portable turntable with built-in speakers was housed on the other.<\/h4>\n

One chair stood alone between the two recliners.\u00a0 It was handy for drinks or remotes.\u00a0 Howard\u2019s television stood atop another chair opposite his La-Z-Boy.\u00a0 No need either for end tables or a TV stand.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Tuesday evening social had lasted almost a decade before the group began to thin out.\u00a0 Some of the other men had died.\u00a0 One had moved into assisted living.\u00a0\u00a0 Another was taken in by his daughter in another town.\u00a0 The Tuesday crowd had dwindled to a number that represented less than a crowd.\u00a0 Two\u2019s company only when there\u2019s not poker stakes.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t fun anymore.\u00a0 Now, the only other chair at the table not occupied by Howard or the cat was allocated to Gila.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gila had been Howard\u2019s neighbour for many years now.\u00a0 She\u2019d been around in the poker days and always kidded Howard about \u2018the stench of old men\u2019 in the halls.\u00a0 Howard didn\u2019t feel insulted.\u00a0 He was an old man.\u00a0 He was eighty-five and if there was an old man smell then he probably embraced it without knowing.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Howard didn\u2019t know how old Gila was.\u00a0 He never inquired and he knew the rule that you never ask a lady\u2019s age.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t be much off the mark of Howard\u2019s stage however if he thought about it at all.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He remembered his first interaction with Gila.\u00a0 He\u2019d seen her around the building.\u00a0 It was hard not to miss an elderly blind lady with a cane.\u00a0 The cane was as unique as Gila.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the expected slender white version used for tapping one\u2019s way around.\u00a0 It was wooden and gnarled and Gila swung it wide like it was a weapon more than a guidance device.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cCan I help you with anything?\u201d Howard had asked her one day when he saw her struggling with a bag of groceries and the key to unlock her apartment.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDo I look like I need help?\u201d she had snapped back at him.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNo, I guess you don\u2019t,\u201d he\u2019d responded while trying not to feel offended, \u201cbut there\u2019s a can of peas that seems to have bolted and is rolling off down the hall.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gila swung her cane in an arc trying to locate the escapee tin of vegetables.\u00a0 She nearly connected with one of Howard\u2019s shins but he stepped aside quickly and scooped up the can.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIn my hand, straight ahead,\u201d Howard offered.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gila\u2019s face softened.\u00a0 She reached out slowly until she connected with Howard\u2019s outstretched hand.\u00a0 She retrieved the can and secured it back in her bag.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThank you, and sorry about the bark.\u00a0 Used to doing for myself.\u00a0 The name\u2019s Gila.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cHoward.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cWell Howard, now we\u2019ve been properly introduced and you\u2019ve learned of my fondness for canned peas.\u00a0 I\u2019d ask you in for coffee but all I know about you is your name is Howard and you smell like an old man.\u00a0 Sorry,\u201d she quickly added, \u201cI always say what\u2019s on my mind.\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t, but I do.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cNo offense taken, I am an old man.\u00a0 Coffee would be nice but you\u2019re right, you don\u2019t know me, and all I know about you is your name and now the peas thing.\u00a0 And you\u2019re\u2026\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cBlind.\u00a0 It\u2019s okay, go ahead and say it.\u00a0 No denying the obvious.\u201d\u00a0 Gila finally extended her hand in greeting.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI was going to say, you\u2019re obviously a fan of coffee or have coffee on hand for those you eventually come to trust.\u201d\u00a0 Howard grasped her hand and placed his other hand on the backside of her palm.\u00a0 He thought it would be more friendly.\u00a0 He hoped it wouldn\u2019t come off as too intimate.<\/h4>\n

Gila laughed.\u00a0 \u201cSmooth talker or a good liar,\u201d she said after freeing her hand.\u00a0 \u201cNice to meet you, Howard.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201c610,\u201d Howard responded.<\/h4>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d Gila asked in return.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in 610 in case you ever want to have that coffee.\u00a0 Of course, I can\u2019t do a darn thing about the old man smell though.\u00a0 My place smells like me.\u00a0 Oh, and cat,\u201d he quickly added.<\/h4>\n

\u201cHoward in 610 with a cat.\u00a0 That\u2019s two more things I\u2019ve learned about you.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Gila must have discerned enough from their brief conversation to be comfortable with Howard.\u00a0 An hour later she was rapping on the door to 610.<\/h4>\n

Gila always said she came to check out the cat but she kept coming back for the coffee.\u00a0 Howard always believed it was his sparkling personality but he never challenged her on that.<\/h4>\n

Howard never went to Gila\u2019s.\u00a0 The invitation was never extended.\u00a0 Howard believed because she was blind that her apartment was arranged in a certain way for her convenience and probably he would just mess things up.\u00a0 Still, he never complained.\u00a0 Gila was good company.<\/h4>\n

Sometimes they would just sit and talk.\u00a0 They conversed about the news.\u00a0 They gossiped about the neighborhood or the building.\u00a0 They shared personal histories.\u00a0 Gila had lost her eyesight when she was a child.\u00a0 Some combined disease and fever.\u00a0 Howard didn\u2019t understand it all.\u00a0 She still had memories of when she could see so whatever Howard described to her, she had reference.\u00a0 She\u2019d never married.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gila had spent a lifetime as a teacher.\u00a0 She worked with other blind people.\u00a0 She taught them braille.\u00a0 She read to them from texts also in braille.\u00a0 She covered a lot of subjects.\u00a0 She taught a lot of students.\u00a0 Some were children.\u00a0 Some were adults.\u00a0 Some were born without sight and others had lost that sense later on.\u00a0 When she retired, she found a small career recording books on tape.\u00a0 Later it was CDs.\u00a0 Then it became digital.\u00a0 That\u2019s when she called it quits.\u00a0 She had enjoyed the fruits of her labour in a format she could hold in her hand.\u00a0 It always felt like she had accomplished something.\u00a0 Digital was nothing.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t touch it.\u00a0 Somehow, the magic was gone from it.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Howard was fascinated that this woman who shared coffee with him while seated on one of his sixteen chairs had once had a role in creating audio books.\u00a0 The idea that this person who always spoke her mind, even when she knew she shouldn\u2019t, had products out in the world of her recorded voice, spurred him to track some down.<\/h4>\n

He tried the library without success but was referred to a local bookstore with an audio books section.\u00a0 They had none but they could order some in.\u00a0 There was some confusion in the beginning when he asked for books by Gila Kovacs and they could find no listings.\u00a0 Howard realized his mistake and asked for books read by Gila Kovacs.\u00a0 That narrowed down the search.\u00a0 Still, many were out of print.\u00a0 In the end, he ordered four and the store called him when they were in.<\/h4>\n

Gila\u2019s reading voice was slow, smooth, and methodical.\u00a0 She pronounced every word as it should be heard and provided proper inflection and narration.\u00a0 Two had been mystery books and two had been romance.\u00a0 Howard lay in bed at night with the sounds of his portable CD player broadcasting Gila\u2019s voice from its location on the wingback chair in the corner of the room.\u00a0 Usually Howard\u2019s dirty clothes were piled there until they made a load for laundry.\u00a0 Now, he tossed them on the floor beside the bed.\u00a0 Out of sight, out of mind, he thought.<\/h4>\n

It took him a long time to get through the four books on CD.\u00a0 He would always fall asleep listening to Gila and would have to start up the next night.\u00a0 Howard never told his blind neighbour that most nights her voice often lulled him into slumber.<\/h4>\n

Howard\u2019s life story didn\u2019t have any of the intrigue that Gila\u2019s had.\u00a0 He realized at his age he had more behind him than he had ahead.<\/h4>\n

He\u2019d married once.\u00a0 In reality, he\u2019d been married twice but it was to the same person.\u00a0 The first time was right out of high-school.\u00a0 They\u2019d both been too young but the attraction was there and they both wanted to act on it.\u00a0 Five years later, they understood they were too unlike one another.<\/h4>\n

Howard didn\u2019t like the term \u201cirreconcilable differences\u201d but that\u2019s what his lawyer put forward for terms of the divorce.\u00a0 It was all very amicable.\u00a0 They went their separate ways.\u00a0 Five years later they discovered each other again and after a whirlwind romance of two more mature persons, they went to the Justice Of The Peace and made another try.\u00a0 That time it was less than a year.\u00a0 The attraction wore off and they were still too different from one another.\u00a0 Finally, Howard understood that being different persons was the real gist of the irreconcilable differences.\u00a0 She moved away.\u00a0 He never saw her again.<\/h4>\n

Gila thought the notion comical of marrying the same person twice only to discover that you were correct the first time you separated.\u00a0 Gila usually said what she was thinking but she kept her musing on that one from Howard.<\/h4>\n

The fascination with chairs started when Howard was hired on by a furniture company.\u00a0 He was very strong when he was younger and his back, and his arms, and his legs always held true.\u00a0 At eighty-five he felt some kind of pain in every joint.\u00a0 He bruised easily.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t close his fingers tight enough to make a fist.\u00a0 Arthritis was the visitor that moved in and never left.\u00a0 At least it didn\u2019t need its own chair.<\/h4>\n

His strength early on seemed never-ending.\u00a0 He could lift almost anything unless it was too bulky and required a pair of movers.\u00a0 Chairs were easy, though.\u00a0 He could heft them over his head.\u00a0 Smaller ones he could put together and carry in a stack.\u00a0 He\u2019d often try and see how many he could take on at a time.<\/h4>\n

He observed sometimes that chairs were like people.\u00a0 It was like they had personalities of their own.\u00a0 They could be short or tall or large.\u00a0 They could be overstuffed or sagging in the middle.\u00a0 They reminded him of people he knew.\u00a0 The sagging part reminded Howard of himself.<\/h4>\n

Now when he looked around at the unoccupied chairs, he was reminded of the people who had come and gone; the dinette and the poker crew especially.\u00a0 He was glad for Gila.\u00a0 More life in that one seat than all the other ghosts in the apartment.\u00a0 He never wanted to think of a time when that chair might become a vacant seat.<\/h4>\n

When Howard got older and could no longer move like he used to, in more ways than one, he moved into management.\u00a0 He taught others how to properly move furniture and other items.\u00a0 After a while, he branched out and opened his own inner-city moving company.\u00a0 No more long-haul moving.\u00a0 All of his employees were educated in Howard\u2019s philosophy of showing respect to the belongings of others.\u00a0 Eventually he retired from that and sold out to someone else who wanted to get off the road and get into the office.<\/h4>\n

Howard\u2019s last act was to rescue an old white wooden chair that had gone unclaimed for a few years.\u00a0 Someone had taken it off a truck and stored it the warehouse where it stayed hidden behind stacks of empty moving boxes.\u00a0 It was Howard\u2019s sixteenth chair.\u00a0 He gave it a prominent spot in his home.\u00a0 It found new life in his bathroom where it stored a hoard of National Geographic magazines.\u00a0 He liked to peruse them when nature called.\u00a0 He liked the mystery of foreign countries.\u00a0 He often thought of the places he\u2019d go if only he could.\u00a0 Now he had obligations to the cat and to Gila.<\/h4>\n

The realization that Howard Morgan owned sixteen chairs was never questioned by Howard Morgan\u2026until one day.\u00a0 One afternoonhe accidentally turned on the radio portion of his portable CD player when swapping out one of Gila\u2019s narrated books.\u00a0 He picked up on a conversation from two radio personalities he recognized from the drive home time slot.\u00a0 He only ever listened for the news because the patter between the pair was never interesting and lacking in humor.\u00a0 That day the conversation caught his attention.<\/h4>\n

\u201cYou own eleven chairs?\u201d the female asked.<\/h4>\n

\u201cYes, I do,\u201d the male responded.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s crazy!\u00a0 Don\u2019t you live in a one bedroom apartment?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cYes, I do.\u201d\u00a0 The male\u2019s responses seemed preprogrammed.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s way too many, man.\u00a0 Besides, eleven\u2019s an odd number.\u00a0 You need to downsize.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cOr get another,\u201d he replied.<\/h4>\n

\u201cNo way.\u00a0 Who would want to own twelve chairs?\u00a0 Even eleven\u2019s too many.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Howard switched off their banter.\u00a0 It was not just unfunny but it was bothersome.\u00a0 It made him think of his own sixteen chairs.\u00a0 He thought about listening in again to find out why the male had eleven chairs but it only made Howard want to question further why he owned so many himself.<\/h4>\n

\u201cIs eleven chairs too many for one man?\u201d he found himself asking aloud.\u00a0 \u201cWhat does that say about me and my sixteen?\u201d\u00a0 He tried to shut out the question but it continued to nag at him.\u00a0 It nagged at him while he sat on one of his kitchen chairs eating his dinner.\u00a0 It nagged at him while he lay back in his recliner and tried to watch television.\u00a0 It nagged at him while he lay in bed and listened to Gila\u2019s voice emanating from the direction of the wing-chair.\u00a0 Somehow the sound of her speech failed to aid him easily into sleep.\u00a0 He could not escape the question of the sixteen chairs.<\/h4>\n

\u201cGila, how many chairs is too many?\u201d\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t let it go and so the next day he asked the only person he knew who would give him a straight direct answer without replying immediately with a question of her own.<\/h4>\n

\u201cHow should I know Howard.\u00a0 I\u2019m blind.\u00a0 Even one misplaced chair is one too many when you can\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/h4>\n

That was the type of response he expected from her.\u00a0 Gila was always right to the point.\u00a0 This Gila sipping coffee from the yellow mug with the duck on it was vastly different to the one who spoke to him from the CD player on the chair in his bedroom.<\/h4>\n

\u201cWhy do you ask?\u201d\u00a0 Gila continued.\u00a0 \u201cDo you have a chair problem, Howard?\u201d\u00a0 Direct again.<\/h4>\n

Howard thought about it for a moment.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t always take the straight route like his friend.\u00a0 His thinking was more circuitous.<\/h4>\n

\u201cWould you think eleven is too many?\u201d\u00a0 He remembered the conversation from the radio and thought that was a good jumping off point.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a lot of chairs, Howard.\u00a0 Are you telling me you have eleven chairs?\u00a0 Not that I\u2019m judging,\u201d she quickly added.<\/h4>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m telling you I have sixteen chairs,\u201d he responded in almost a whisper.<\/h4>\n

There was no expression in Gila\u2019s face.\u00a0 Howard always found it hard to read her reactions.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t shock but he didn\u2019t note acceptance either.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to respond to that,\u201d she finally said.\u00a0 \u201cExcept to say, prove it.\u00a0 My apartment\u2019s the same layout as yours.\u00a0 Give me the tour of your sixteen chairs, Howard Morgan.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Howard obliged.\u00a0 He took her by the arm and walked her throughout all the rooms.\u00a0 He placed her free hand on top of each chair and provided their history.\u00a0 He detailed everything on every chair.\u00a0 She ran her hand across the books and fingered some of the records.\u00a0 Howard shocked her only once when he reached out her hand to touch the cat perched upon the National Geographic magazines.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t been surprised by the number of chairs or being escorted into Howard\u2019s bedroom and then the bathroom.\u00a0 She knew where she was at every moment because the footprint of her own lodgings were identical to his.\u00a0 She just had forgotten about the cat and its appearance on the sixteenth chair was something she hadn\u2019t expected.\u00a0 They both laughed.\u00a0 For Howard\u2019s part, he was temporarily glad that Gila was blind and could not make out the CDs in the bedroom that carried her voice.\u00a0 Howard would have had some uncomfortable explaining to do.<\/h4>\n

Gila never did answer Howard\u2019s question about the quantity of chairs.\u00a0 Instead she focused on the other things she had discovered in their journey through his collection.<\/h4>\n

She asked about the records and made requests.\u00a0 Howard obliged.<\/h4>\n

She asked about the books and she made a point to remember some of the titles.\u00a0 She wondered if there were braille versions.<\/h4>\n

She questioned him about the National Geographics.\u00a0 He told her about his fascination.\u00a0 She asked him to read some of the articles to her.\u00a0 Again he obliged.\u00a0 His voice wasn\u2019t like hers.\u00a0 It was faltering and slow.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t object.\u00a0 Eventually he became more relaxed and he inflected some of his wonder into his readings.<\/h4>\n

The days they had coffee were no longer just coffee.\u00a0 He played recordings for her.\u00a0 He read from the magazine stash in the bathroom.<\/h4>\n

Sometimes they would go out together.\u00a0 She would leave her cane behind and allowed herself to be escorted by the arm.\u00a0 They went grocery shopping together.\u00a0 They went to the park.\u00a0 Howard would describe the people, and the sights, and the birds.\u00a0 He got to be very good at recognizing their species.\u00a0 The National Geographic magazines had come in handy.<\/h4>\n

They continued their coffee afternoons.\u00a0 Occasionally they would go out for coffee to a place that Howard knew.\u00a0 Gila would repeat conversations to him that she overhead.\u00a0 His hearing was not as good as hers.<\/h4>\n

It was a beautiful friendship and the perfect relationship for their time of life.\u00a0 Records, books, magazines, coffee, and sixteen chairs.\u00a0 Oh, and one discerning cat.<\/h4>\n

The realization that Howard Morgan owned sixteen chairs was never questioned again by Howard Morgan.\u00a0 He realized that Gila had never answered him when he asked her about the amount.\u00a0 He guessed it did really matter after all.\u00a0 Probably sixteen chairs were sufficient.<\/h4>\n

The sixteen chairs proved to be just the right amount\u2026on two occasions.<\/h4>\n

On Howard\u2019s ninetieth birthday his friends came and occupied the sixteen chairs.\u00a0 Gila occupied her customary spot.\u00a0 All of the records and books and magazines and other items had been relocated to storage a few days before to make room.<\/h4>\n

Howard would have been pleased.<\/h4>\n

Howard had died four days before he would have been ninety.<\/h4>\n

Howard had awoken in the night to that concerning heaviness in his chest he had always feared.\u00a0 He gave a glance to the cat lying on the pillow next to him and realized immediately something was wrong.\u00a0 He had just enough strength to make it to the living room.\u00a0 He thought maybe if he elevated his feet while reclining that the pain would go away.\u00a0 It did not.\u00a0 Howard slipped away peacefully in his favourite chair.\u00a0 The cat sat in the manual version and mewed lowly throughout the night.<\/h4>\n

Gila could not rouse him the next day when she knocked at his door.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t like Howard not to answer.\u00a0 She became concerned and rapped loudly again with the head of her cane.\u00a0 She began to panic and felt her way along the hall and began rapping on other doors until someone answered.\u00a0 The neighbour called the building manager.\u00a0 The manager called the police.\u00a0 The police called for the paramedics.\u00a0 It was too late.\u00a0 Howard was gone.\u00a0 They found him in the electric recliner with the cat curled up on his lap.<\/h4>\n

Four days later Gila hosted a combination celebration of life and ninetieth birthday party.\u00a0 Nice things were said about Howard.\u00a0 Tears were shed.\u00a0 No one said anything about the quantity of chairs.<\/h4>\n

Howard had left a will.\u00a0 It was found among the magazines in the bathroom.\u00a0 It seemed appropriate. \u00a0He was on his last journey.<\/h4>\n

He didn\u2019t have much.\u00a0 He insisted everything be sold and the proceeds be donated to a local animal shelter.\u00a0 To Gila, he left the yellow mug with the duck on it, his cat, and a chair of her choice.\u00a0 His only stipulation was that it was not one from the dinette because he wanted the set to remain complete.<\/h4>\n

Gila selected the white wooden chair from the bathroom.\u00a0 It had secretly been one of Howard\u2019s favorites and the cat had enjoyed it. \u00a0After the celebration she asked one of the attendees to carry it down the hall and leave it outside her door.<\/h4>\n

When she was alone she dragged the chair inside and then stopped for a moment to get her bearings.<\/h4>\n

\u201cCat, are you here?\u201d she asked aloud.<\/h4>\n

As if in reply, the cat meowed.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI brought you something.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Gila felt out in front of her and then to both sides.\u00a0 She counted as she made her away.\u00a0 She touched the backs of fifteen chairs that lay out a path from her kitchen to her living room.\u00a0 There were breaks in the line for the bathroom and at the end for the entrance to her bedroom.\u00a0 There was also a side path of two chairs that led to the kitchen counter.\u00a0 She felt out with her fingers and found the yellow mug.\u00a0 She held it to her face and thought of Howard.\u00a0 It still smelled of coffee.<\/h4>\n

Struggling only slightly, she dragged Howard\u2019s sixteenth chair down the line and placed it in her bedroom next to her bed.\u00a0 She reached for a spare pillow and placed it on the chair for the cat.<\/h4>\n

Gila patted the pillow and called for the cat.\u00a0 It came running and hopped up.<\/h4>\n

She stroked the cat until she heard it purr.\u00a0 She turned away and then felt back along the chairs until she reached her apartment door.\u00a0 Then she turned again and listened.\u00a0 She could hear the cat\u2019s purring from there.<\/h4>\n

She spoke quietly to the room in her soft narrator voice.<\/h4>\n

\u201cNo, Howard Morgan, sixteen chairs is not too many.\u00a0 They\u2019re just enough.\u201d<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0I’m back again with another new short story.\u00a0 The last one I had written was\u00a0“HOW ABOUT YOU, DELBERT ROBINSON?” which I posted on February 27th.\u00a0 That story had taken me six months to write, having started it in August of last year.\u00a0 Before that, I had written\u00a0THE POCKET PAL\u2019S GUIDE TO MURDER which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4,350,3,309],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7535,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533\/revisions\/7535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}