Free Write - Chairs

This week's Free Write finds the three writers in Switzerland and France. The photo taken in a French village was emailed to the writer in Switzerland. 

D-L's Free Write

"Shit!" Miriam said as she passed the four chairs outside the antique shop. The owner stood in the doorway.

"How much?" she asked. 

Two hundred euros each, 700 for all four. They're over 100 years old."

"Really? Strange. I made them, and I'm not close to 100." She smiled. "I can prove it. I'll show you every flaw." She picked up each chair and pointed out each chip and where every measurement was just a little off. "Where did you get them?"

"A young woman sold them to me. Last week."

"Was her name Angela Flannagan?"

The owner blanched and nodded.

"My daughter-in-law. I made them for her." Miriam had spent months on the carvings and had ruined two pieces of expensive leather to get the seats and backs just right. She hoped the gift would improve their relationship. She didn't want to be an interfering mother-in-law, but suspected that her very existence was interference to her daughter-in.law. "I want to buy them for what you paid."

***

Miriam arranged the four chairs in her sun room. Then she invited her son and daughter-in-law for Sunday lunch in the sun room

When the couple walked in, she asked, "Do you like the new chairs? I found them in that antique shop on Grove Street." 

She never mentioned them again, nor did her daughter-in-law. 

Rick's Free Write Mystery of the Chairs

They appeared out of nowhere. And disappeared almost as fast. Most likely discarded from an apartment. Most likely scavenged by someone who thought them useful. People did that in the village with “good trash” – set out items to get rid of, hoping someone would cart them away. Saves a trip across town to the decheterie. We’ve done the same with stuff.

At first we thought the chairs might have to do with the medieval festival on the weekend. Handmade of wood and leather, carved symbols on the cross bar.

They might have gone well with our carved Henry 2nd and Elinore chest. And our carved “wine cave” chest. But they were too low for our dining table, and we already had sturdy chairs on the patio.

Odd that they were different sizes, two taller, two shorter. For adults and children perhaps.

I imagined them in medieval times at a feast for the king and dukes of Majorca,

Or maybe… in another century, as the seats of the condemned, waiting to be fitted with electrocution caps. But why four? Crime spree?

Julia's Free Write

It was wonderful, simply wonderful.

To be back in his childhood, his youth and young adulthood.

He looked around the house, the workshop where his father spent his days.

He could smell the wood, the leather. He could see himself as a toddler picking up shavings and scraps. Then he was a child, still picking them up but now able to put names to them.

Suddenly, he was a teenager, apprenticed to his father, the carpenter and his uncle the creator of all things leather.

His mother wanted him to go to school, but it held no interest for him. He was happier weekends when he could be in the workshop.

Still, he persisted for his mother’s sake, finally ending up with degrees in designing and woodwork.

Home again, his dad and uncle paid him a small stipend to help them build.

 

Abruptly he awoke – in his fine house, the house where he had crafted the cabinets, the shelves. The house in his home village to which he had brought the wife found during his studies.

What brought on the dream?

Ah yes, those four leather chairs on the flea market wall: chairs probably made by his father and uncle! Were those his tacks?

About the writers 

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the top stories about the airline industry. He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/