Beloved Chair

Today the man locked us up in the big house. Twice. He picked me up from my beloved chair, carried me from my room, and closed the door. Twice.

Whenever the man carries me, Zuzu always follows. In some ways, I miss the days when Zuzu would bark and scream every time a human started to pick me up. Now she just gets excited because she, too, wants me out of my chair. She is one of them now: the dwellers of the big house.

She also knows the man won’t hurt me, even though she herself still keeps him at a great distance. She still calls him the ogre.

The big house makes me nervous. There are too many rooms, and too many ways to go. Yet as soon as the man sets me down on the floor, I take off running because he seems to respond to play. I stay in the biggest room and run circles around the furniture. I’m trembling (a little), but I make sure I catch the man’s eye every time I pass in front of him. If he sees that I’m having fun, if I can make him detect sincerity in my big smile, he might conclude that I’m happy, and no longer in need of therapy, and he might open the door to my room.

The man does respond, joining in the play with little I’m-gonna-get-you motions and words and play-growls, but he’s too slow to play correctly. He always stands in one place, or walks slowly and deliberately, and he’s not really scary, not even play-scary. If he ever comes down here to the floor, I think he might be stuck here.

Instead of opening the door after we play, as per my plan, the man just walks away and takes a shower (the first time) or sits in his office for an hour (the second time), leaving me in the big house without my chair, and Zuzu without her portal to the back yard.

And so I walk around the house, even though I can’t stop thinking about my chair, and my room. Zuzu leads or follows.

Zuzu wants me to snap out of it. She’s almost tired of trying to help me, but she messes with me, anyway. She pushes me with her nose. Sometimes, when I continue to ignore her, she just stares off into space.

She finds a sock. It’s a nice one, too, but I ignore it, so she just leaves it on the floor.

Hey, Zu, is that my lamb toy? My Little Lammy? How did she get in the big house? You knew I was looking for her!

Wait a minute—there’s still food in your bowl. I can fix that.

When the man comes back to the big room, after his shower, he opens the front door and leaves it open, but there’s a second door made of glass, and I get to see the mailbox, and a car driving by. And I see sky and trees and grass and houses, like the view from my chair, only different.

Then I run to the man, and around the man, and around the room, always looking toward the man, then toward the door to my room, so that the man will understand me, believe I am cured, and open the door to my heart’s desire.

The man smiles. He calls me to his side, walks me to my door (I know how to walk at his side, but whenever my chair is near, my excitement messes me up a little), and finally opens it. I try not to hurt myself in my haste to melt back into the comforting contours of my beautiful chair.

My beloved chair.

My precious.